


Shrike

by StepfordSnarker



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 80s references i had to research, But things will get worse before they get better, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, First half takes place in high school, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler Friendship, Mike is still a jerk like in S3 and we have to work through that, Minor Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Robin Buckley Has a Girlfriend, Second half takes place in college, Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Slow Burn, Will Byers & Lucas Sinclair Friendship, amicable Jancy break-up (i'm sorry), and last but not least a teaspoon of Byclair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21945889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StepfordSnarker/pseuds/StepfordSnarker
Summary: I couldn't whisper when you needed it shouted.Ah, but I'm singing like a bird 'bout it now.It's the late '80s, and Will Byers is coping with the loneliness of having left the Party behind. Somehow, through it all, he still has feelings for his childhood best friend, Mike Wheeler, though he's growing to regret that fact more and more with each passing day.It's the early '90s, and Mike Wheeler is coming to understand that there are some people worth losing your false sense of self for. But now that Mike and Will have parted ways, this realization may have come too late.
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 24
Kudos: 72





	1. Small Town Moon

**December 1985**

It's Will's first Christmas back in Hawkins. He's glad to have found that Mike, Lucas, Max, and Dustin haven't forgotten him. He's not too thrilled to find that his bullies have the same mental longevity. Troy is outside, standing on Will's ex-neighbor's porch, and Will immediately regrets coming back to stare at his old house. By himself. It's just that the nostalgia embarrassed him, so he hadn't wanted to ask anyone else to come with him. Troy smokes a cigarette and talks to Stacey Bullock, who definitely doesn't live in this neighborhood because the Bullocks are loaded. There must be a party going on. The windows are flashing in technicolor and there's music pumping muffled but steady out the front door. Stacey's wearing the same dismissive frown that she'd sported when she turned down Dustin at the 1984 Snow Ball. At least after shutting down Dustin, she's had the decency to deny Troy as well.

Will should run. Aside from the natural darkness of nightfall, he's pretty much out in the open. But something—maybe some schadenfreudian vindication that Troy was rarely the one facing humiliation (except of course when El was around)—keeps Will rooted to the spot, watching the fallout. It's a big mistake.

When Stacey turns around to head back inside, Troy huffs and his eyes sweep the perimeter. At first, they pass over Will, but then doubletake and lock firmly, inescapably, upon him. He takes a drag and blows out a puff of smoke, refusing to break eye contact. Will's gut drops. Troy's conjured a flawless image of Billy Hargrove; Will wonders if Max’s late, violent step-brother is some kind of wet dream for wannabe assholes. If so, it seems that he's left his posthumous mark on Hawkins in the form of a few baby-mulleted high schoolers. Will shakes himself of his deer-in-headlights stare and pushes off the ground and his shin scrapes painfully against the warped plastic pedal of Mike's old bike. He hisses but blocks out the sting in favor of pedaling the hell away. It's not quick enough.

There is a shout behind him. The number of voices grows. Within the minute, a car full of intoxicated boys is pulling up next to him. He doesn't turn his head to look.

"Is that Byers?!"

"Will fuckin' Byers!"

"Will the FAG Byers!"

Jesus, how many jerks could they fit into their clown car?

"What happened to the HAIR, Byers?"

Will swallows and resists the urge to touch the back of his neck self-consciously. It was gone, in short. Buzzed right down to the scalp.

"Where's the BOWL, Byers?"

Don't look at them. Don't do it.

He keeps pedaling. They keep creeping up beside him, headlights flaring out and practically blinding Will's left eye.

"D'jur mom cut the fairy hair?" One boy slurs, and then spits out the window. "She fine'ly re'lize you're not a girl, faggot?"

"Don't be so sure," Troy sneers. Something thin, solid, and cylindrical hits Will on the shoulder and bounces off onto the worn pavement. He casts a glance behind and notices the object had been a pen. While he's distracted, the boy in the passenger seat launches something harder and bigger. Will gasps at its impact on his shoulder. He loses balance on the bike and miscalculates trying to correct it, swerving off the road and landing in the frozen snow. He doesn't realize that his pants are torn from hitting the pedal until the wound in his shin meets with ice and the blood seeps into the snow, a black pool sinking through the white moonlit landscape.

There will definitely be a bruise on his shoulder in the morning.

The car is seven feet ahead of him, parked. There's muffled arguing inside. He doesn't care to know what Troy and his cronies are saying. The door on the driver's side opens, and some battered, ugly orange sneakers crunch in the snow by Will's aching body. He'd had the wind knocked out of him in the fall.

"Careful!" Someone in the car shouts. "You get too close, he'll give you AIDS."

Troy crouches next to him, looming too close for comfort. "Why'd you come back, Byers? To get your boyfriend back?"

Will imagines spitting in Troy's face as if he was Robin against the Russians. Despite hearing the story over and over, he  _ couldn't _ be Robin. He'd  _ never _ be Robin. 

And anyway, this isn't about international secrets. It's not even about him. He can tell by the stench of beer on Troy's breath that he's just taking his blue balls frustration out on Will. Will wants to mutter,  _ You think Stacey will find you more appealing for beating up Zombie Boy?  _ But he also wants to keep his teeth tonight. So instead, he looks past Troy, like he's not even there. Troy stands back up, as if he's going to leave. Then, there's a constrictive grip on Will's upper arm, pulling him up off the snow. Troy jerks him over to the road, toward the car, releasing a puff of warm air into the freezing cold as he shouts, "Make room, fellas! We're taking out the trash."

Will glances back at Mike's bicycle, laying discarded off the road. "Bike…" is all he can muster. The hand that Troy isn't using to literally strongarm him roughly shoves Will's head toward the ground. Then, he's pushed into the back of the car, next to two boys even drunker than Troy. One looks crazed, like he's more than just drunk. Will considers kicking, but worries it'll make things worse for him. When the door shuts, he presses himself to it, as far as possible from the boys.

The engine crescendos as the car starts, swerving a bit on the ice before it's fully back in action, going 30 above the speed limit. Will watches the black silhouettes of trees fly by in a blur out the window.

"Man, what the fuck are we doing with this little asshole? I thought we were going to Ritzy's." The one who was just drunk—James—says. 

"There was food  _ at the party _ ," Troy hisses.

_ "Yeah, _ and I didn't eat any because I thought we were going to  _ Ritzy's." _

"You obtuse fuckin' square," the drugged-up guy—whose name Will can't recall—says, thumping James on the head.

"I don't give enough of a shit about this kid to waste a Saturday night." The guy in the passenger seat says.

There's silence, like Troy is considering his words. 

"Hey," the druggie giggles. "Duzthis, like, count as kidnappin'?"

Will sees Troy's hands grip the steering wheel, and the car is sliding a bit to the left. The wheels are hanging over the painted lines. "Jesus Christ," Troy mutters.

They drive for another few minutes, with James and the druggie arguing in the back, and the guy in the passenger seat blasting something stress-inducing by Metallica and screaming along. They finally come to a stop outside Melvald's. It's like they're forcing Will to ruin every good memory he has of Hawkins, but that would be giving them too much credit. They never would've cared enough to know where Will's mom had worked.

While Troy yells at the Metallica guy, Will unlocks his door and jostles the handle, which seems to be broken, but he manages to get the door open. The druggie grabs his arm before he can slip out and yanks him back toward James and himself. "Not s'fast."

"Please," Will's voice barely makes a sound. "Just let me go."

The druggie hums a high-pitched negative.

"Please," his voice cracks. "What do you want?"

"I want you to  _ learn your place _ ." Troy sniffs. He opens the driver's side door and slides out. "Get him out but don't let him run," he instructs the druggie.

Will is roughly dragged out the car door by his arms and shirt collar (thankful that his head had been shaved a few weeks ago, since they likely would have grabbed his long hair if given the option). Shoved into standing position on the sidewalk. He nearly loses his balance. Druggie holds Will’s hands behind his back while James looks around, paranoid they’ll be caught. 

It’s so quiet in the winter night. While they were in the car, delicate snowflakes had begun to fall again. Now, they land on Will’s skin, so cold that the flakes remain solid on impact. There is no noise around aside from the crunch of Troy’s ill-fitted sneakers on the ground. He comes over to the rest and exchanges a particularly nasty glare with James, who shakes his head no. But James’s refusal does fuck all for Will. Troy reels back and throws the first punch, right at Will’s gut. Will’s body had filled to the brim with horrid anticipation, but even now, the punch is harder than his expectations would allow him to imagine. He grasps at the spot, sucking in a breath. Troy punches out wildly, bruising Will on his upper-arms and forearms. He lands another punch against Will’s cheek, but because Troy is drunk, his fist only just makes contact and then slides too far to the right. It still hurts. 

“Dude!” Metallica guy exclaims. “There’s someone here!”

Druggie drops his hold on Will. Troy may or may not hear, but he keeps pounding on Will with no regard for the rumble of car tires fast approaching them. He lands one against Will’s jaw. Taking advantage of having his arms back from Druggie, Will is finally able to cover his face. Troy grabs both of Will’s arms and screams incoherently at him.

“DUDE!”

Through tears, Will can see a water-blurred beacon—white headlights coming closer and closer. The car slows five feet away. Troy lands another punch to Will’s gut. Before the car has even stopped fully, doors on both sides are opening, and people are rushing out. 

Not just anyone.

It’s the Party.

James yelps, grabbing Troy by the shoulders to pry him off Will. “It’s that—that GIRL!” he shouts. “The BALD girl!”

Troy turns on him. “Are you fuckin’ stupid?” 

El had broken Troy’s arm back before Will returned from the Upside Down. He knew that much of the story. But Troy seems reluctant to believe it’s her. He’s still gripping Will’s arm even as James, Druggie, and Metallica run away. 

“WILL!” It’s Mike. 

There’s a flash of red hair and a camouflage bandana, two figures finally succeed in pulling Troy away, and then there are arms around him and a warm body at his back. A body that smells like Mrs. Wheeler’s slice-and-bake Christmas cookies. Mike’s hands press against the bruises on Will’s arms, but he doesn’t say anything about the pain. He can’t say anything at all.

Mike turns him around and stares into his eyes, like he’s searching for something. “Will, are you okay?” No response. He hugs Will. “I’ve got you. We’ve got you.” 

Lucas looks ready to kill Troy, but it’s Max who lands an open-handed slap on the overgrown bully first. 

“Shiiiiit!” Dustin shouts somewhere behind Will and Mike.

She knees Troy in the groin, sending him to the concrete.

Lucas is staring at her in awe, mouth hanging wide open. She grabs his arm and pulls him back toward the others. 

“Is he okay?” She asks Mike, like Will can’t speak. And, well, he can’t.

“I don’t know.” Mike’s voice is thick. Will feels a stab of guilt for making Mike worry like this.

_ “M fine,” _ he whispers.  _ “Fine.”  _ In truth, his head pounds like a motherfucker. His jaw is sore. His ribs hurt so much they feel like they could fall into his stomach.

Max and Lucas glance back toward Troy, still clutching his balls on the ground. “Let’s get out of here,” Lucas says. 

They turn around to go to the car, and Will sees El standing next to Dustin. She’s crying. Uses the side of her hand to wipe tears away.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry, Will. I tried. I—I couldn’t—”

Oh. _ That’s _ why Lucas and Max had stepped in.

Her powers weren’t working. They had been sporadically available to her throughout their time in the new town, but not when she was under stress. It was like her ability to call them had flipped. Now she was learning them all over again, like any other skill.

“It’s not your fault, El,” Will replies. She’s sobbing now. “They’re gone. It’s taken care of. I’m okay.”

She steps forward and hugs him, burying her face into his shoulder. 

It’s finally stopped being strange. Their relationship with each other. He had spent so long at a distance from El simply because she was dating Mike, though he knew she’d been through much of what he had. And Will had been jealous. But when they moved, everything changed. He’d finally gotten to see who she was outside of Mike, outside of the horrible things that always followed them. She was no longer a weapon. She was no longer just copying Mike, Max, or Hopper. Of course, now she would copy Joyce and Will, and occasionally even Jonathan, but only when she didn’t know what else to do. She was starting to become herself. These days, herself is someone Will enjoys being around.

It hurts to see her crying this way, like her failure to rescue Will is a personal fault. He wraps his arms around her, leaving Mike to wait beside them.

“It’s okay,” Will whispers.

Dustin, evidently feeling left out, walks toward Troy. “And don’t you fuck with us again!” He yells.

Lucas shakes his head and pulls Dustin away. Max ushers them to the car. 

* * *

Will is sitting in the Wheeler’s foyer with a bag of frozen peas held to his jaw. 

The party is gathered around, some on the couch with him, and others on the floor. Even little Holly is peeking her head over her dollhouse to watch the goings-on. 

“Why were you even over there?” Lucas asks. He’s discarded the camo bandana onto the floor by his feet, and his arm is around Max’s shoulders.

“Does it matter?” Mike hisses before Will can respond. It’s not abnormal for him to be so defensive, but Will doesn’t like aggression between Party members. Luckily, Lucas takes the high ground.

“Fine, sheesh.” Lucas rolls his eyes.

“I just wanted to see the old house,” Will explains. “They were having a party next door, and Troy and James were there. They saw me.” He leans his head back against the wall. “How did you guys even find me?”

“It was El,” Max says. “She could tell you were in distress, and then she tracked you.”

So her powers were still hanging on, then.

El, who is right beside him, leans her head on his shoulder. She squeezes his hand. 

“Sorry I couldn’t… do more—” 

“Are you kidding?” Will’s voice is incredulous. “You saved me.” He looks out over all of his friends, and feels a kind of love that he hasn’t felt since the move. “You all did. Thank you.”

They’ve saved him. Again. 

“Man,” he lets out a self-conscious laugh. Then, quietly, bitterly: “I’m really more trouble than I’m worth, huh?” 

“What are you talking about?” Right next to him, Mike sits up straight, looks directly into his eyes, just like when they’d first found him being beaten by Troy. “Stop. Will, you’re worth it. You’ve _ always _ been worth it.” Will feels heat rise in his cheeks, greatful the frozen peas have already made his skin red to cover it up. “You’ll always  _ be  _ worth it,” Mike says. Will is breathless.

“God, you and El are too similar,” Lucas says. “Like, no matter what we do, you both feel bad about everything! It’s like you two living together has made it worse.”

Will turns to look at El, and they share a small smile.

“Will even looks kind of like old El now,” Dustin says. “You know, like with the hair?”

Now  _ that’s _ surprising. There’s a murmur of agreement around the circle. Even Mike nods his head, which makes Will uncomfortable deep in his stomach for a reason he can’t, or won’t, quite place.

Nancy enters the room with a platter of the slice-and-bake Christmas cookies. She’s wearing a red-checked flannel nightgown, a pair of fuzzy socks, and her hair is tied back in a messy bun. Will understands why Jonathan likes her so much. But he’s heard little about her since the move, especially since Jonathan had decided to stay at NYU over winter break. Will catches El staring as well, with a hunger like Nancy is all she ever wants to be.

“Mom burned like half of this batch, but they’re still mostly good,” Nancy says. She sets the plate down on the coffee table, and everyone but Will leans over to grab one. Mike offers a cookie to Will, but he shakes his head no. His jaw hurts too much to chew anything.

“We can’t keep them distracted forever, you know,” Nancy says. "Joyce is going to find out eventually.”

_ We _ is Nancy and Erica, who the party begged to keep Joyce and Mrs. Wheeler clueless while the party went to look for Will. “She’s going to see the bruises. It’s better to let her know.”

They all turn to look at Will. As if he has the final decision. But it’s not like he has much choice. He sighs. “Fine.”

* * *

It’s 2 AM, Christmas morning. Mike and Will are lying awake on Mike’s bed, which feels less spacious after their respective growth spurts. They can hear Nancy’s subdued voice muffled through the wall, probably talking to Jonathan over the phone. 

“Do you think they’ll stay together?” Will asks. 

Mike sits up, looking down at Will in surprise. “Of course! Why would you say that?”

Will shrugs. He doesn’t know how to explain to Mike that maybe the reason why he doesn’t question the longevity of their relationship is because the Wheelers were still married to each other. Love just doesn’t seem as permanent when your parents are separated.

“They’re long distance now, is all.” 

“So?” Mike scoffs. “El and me are long distance, and  _ we’re _ fine.”

Will doesn’t know how to respond to that. Was Mike bent on El being with him forever? Even after last summer’s breakup? Mike looks at Will like he wants the reassurance. Will can’t decide whether he wants to give it to him.

“They’re adults, though,” Will says, finally. “They have more responsibilities than they did in high school. And Jonathan can’t afford to visit her as often as you see El. He couldn’t even pay for a ticket back to Indiana for winter break.”

Mike is silent.

This makes Will feel awkward. He sits up so that he can speak to Mike properly. “I don’t  _ want _ them to break up. I just think it’s realistic that they might. Is Nancy gonna stay up ‘til two to talk to him for four years?”

Mike looks unsure, like he’s never considered it.

“He’s gonna have second shift all four years?”

“I mean, hopefully.”

_ “Hopefully?” _

“Well he can’t work first shift when he’s taking classes.”

“Can’t he just work during the summer?”

Will looks at Mike, shocked. “I mean, sure, if all he had to do was pay for food. But he’s saving to pay off interest on his loans so they don’t get worse than they already are. And whatever’s left usually goes to his trips between New York and Indiana.”

Mike frowns. “Catch 22,” he says.

“What?”

“He has a job so he can see Nancy, but that job keeps him from talking to Nancy.”

Will nods solemnly. A particularly strong gust of freezing wind smacks some tree limbs against Mike’s window. There’s a constant whistle outside. Mike huffs and drops back down against his pillow.

“Let’s apply to the same schools, Will.”

Will blinks. “What?”

“I miss you. And I don’t want to totally lose track of you once we get to college.”

Warmth floods Will’s chest, and he can’t keep a smile from spreading across his face.

“It could be our chance to live near each other again,” Mike says. “Not just breaks.”

“Yeah.” Will’s mind is going a million miles per hour. “Yeah, that sounds great.”

He imagines moving into a dorm room with Mike as his roommate. They’d stay up past midnight every weeknight working on class work and every weekend seeing movies, reading comics, and (if he was lucky) playing D&D! Maybe they would get to go to college parties together—drink for the first time together. Feeling slightly buzzed, they would play truth or dare with a bunch of strangers. And someone would tease them for having known each other forever in their small town, dare them to kiss. And it would be awkward and nerve-wracking, but they would go through with it. But that would surely ruin Will because it would be the final nail in the coffin. If they kissed, Mike would know for sure that there was nothing between them.

Will cringes at the fact that he’s allowed his imagination to wander so far. And with Mike laying down right beside him.

“I mean, I know we just got to high school, but college is so exciting,” Mike muses. “Guys like us are cool in college.”

It  _ is _ tempting to believe that the bullies would magically disappear once Will stepped onto a campus with a bunch of intelligent, sensible adults. He smiles again and lays back down, his shoulder just barely grazing Mike’s. “No more Troy and James, yeah?” He says. Mike turns his head toward Will, wistful expression wiped away to reveal concern. He nods, jaw set.

“No more Troy and James.”

Nancy’s muffled voice finally stops, like she’s just said goodbye. In the quiet, they hear her door open, a light switch flipping, and her socked feet padding across the wooden floor to the hall bathroom. Light floods under Mike’s door. The quiet grows thick.

“Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Are there bullies at your new school?”

A beat. “Yeah.”

“…They bully you?”

“Yeah.”

“Does your mom know?”

“Kind of?”

Earlier, when Joyce came into the foyer and saw Will pressing frozen peas to his purple jaw and purple arms, she had hugged him, petted his head like she was brushing back his phantom hair, and promised to never let him out of her sight in Hawkins again. It was embarrassing. And all it had done was strengthen her resolve in the choice to move. 

“What do you mean ‘kind of?’”

“She thinks it’s still better there than here.”

“…Is it?”

Will pulls the blanket tight around himself. “I’m not zombie boy there. I’m just any other loser. It’s like being sent back in time, but without any of you guys there to make it bearable.” He feels tears emerging. Shuts his eyes to block them out. “No one is there to stick up for me besides El. And I’ve been trying—fuck, I’ve been trying to stand up for myself, but it’s hard to stand up against someone when you agree with them, Mike.” 

Mike rolls onto his side. “Will, look at me.”

He does.

“Do you know how unbelievably _ wrong _ a person would have to be to bully you? Anyone in their right mind would want to be your best friend.”

Will covers his eyes, though he knows it gives away the fact that he’s crying. “But they’re  _ right!  _ I’m a loser! I can’t make friends unless you’re around. I get overwhelmed by  _ everything _ so it just looks like I’m a crybaby and my mom works super hard every day of her life but I can’t afford to do anything and all I can wear are Jonathan’s hand-me-downs. And I’m not LIKE everyone else there. But I guess I’m not LIKE everyone else here either, so what does it even matter.” 

Mike looks at him with pity. It makes Will sick to his stomach because he shouldn’t want pity from anyone. But because it’s Mike Wheeler—well, Will is just happy that Mike feels anything for him.

“Did El tell you why we cut my hair?”

Mike shakes his head no.

“A girl stuck her gum in my hair. On purpose, like we were in third grade or something. So El and I went out and bought a clipper and just took all of it off. It’s not like I even liked my hair, but it bugs me out that a girl could just decide to do one thing and then suddenly I had to fix a part of myself because of her.”

Mike stares at him, all soft dark hair and pale skin in the blue shadow of the bedroom.

It’s all Will can do to stop himself from blubbering. “I  _ hated _ walking into school the next day with my hair gone. Like I was bending to their will. Letting them control me. But I didn’t have another choice. I  _ never _ have another choice.”

“Tell your mom to move back,” Mike pleads. “I know it’s not that simple, but—” 

Will points to his jaw, the purple bloom of a bruise. “This hasn’t happened there.”

Mike bites his lip.

“I’m tired.” Will turns over. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Merry Christmas, Will.”

“Merry Christmas, Mike.”

* * *

**July 1988**

_ Faith, Heaven is a Place on Earth,  _ and  _ Anything For You _ are overplayed on the radio. Will actually likes  _ If It Isn’t Love _ and  _ I Hate Myself For Loving You. _ This year,  _ Fast Car  _ by Tracy Chapman is his favorite song. He and El are both 17 now, but they still like to dance around in their shared bedroom, singing the latest hits into hairbrushes when they’re supposed to be doing lessons. El is still catching up with some of Will’s freshman year science notes, but she’s already on sophomore year-level math. Meanwhile, Will is certain his brain stopped processing numbers after Algebra I, leaving him to barely scrape by in every math class since then. He wonders where she’d gotten the talent for it from. 

Sometimes he’s jealous that El gets to be homeschooled. To him, it had always seemed more efficient to learn at your own pace rather than spending seven hours a day in a cement building with a couple-hundred kids whose greatest desire in life seemed to be making Will feel miserable. Actually, scratch that. A dozen kids were like that. The rest just wanted to ignore him.

Besides, El has Will to help teach her. Will wouldn’t have had anyone, with Jonathan at school and Joyce at work. Even worse, they had to keep El working through the summer because she needed to catch up with what was expected for a 17 year-old girl as soon as they could manage. 

He turns off the radio as soon as Joan Jett’s voice fades out and tosses the hairbrush-turned-microphone onto El’s bed. “Okay, that’s it. You need to do five more questions if you want the music back on.”

“The number you picked is so  _ arbitrary,” _ El says.

“Good vocab word. How many points so far today?”

“Twenty.”

Just a few weeks after moving in, Joyce had put a colorful chart on the back of their door with little scorecards for how many new vocabulary words El could use in a day. The point amount for a reward, like ice cream or a trip to the movies, grows every week. Will has a stake in how El performs, too, since he’s basically her teacher. This week, the two have their sights set on earning tickets to  _ Who Framed Roger Rabbit _ .

“I don’t like essay questions,” El says. History is her worst subject. Will can understand why, since it’s like cramming several hundred years of information into two years just so El doesn’t slip up on a basic question, like “Who lost World War II?” or “What is the official national bird of the USA?” out in the real world and draw suspicion. It’s also one of the subjects she needs most help with. Will doesn’t like to teach it because sometimes he just doesn’t know how to introduce El to certain moral concepts, like the genocide of indigenous populations, the fight for women’s suffrage, or the criminalization of homosexuality, which he’d had to explain to her when Congressman Barney Frank came out as gay. 

“I know, but it’s super important that you get this stuff right.”

“Why did people let Thomas Jefferson get so famous? He’s awful.”

“Beats me.”

The phone rings from the kitchen, so Will leaves El to grumble about Monticello alone.

_ “It’s me,” _ Mike says through the receiver.

“Who?”

A sigh. _ “Mike.” _

“Mike who? I know a lot of Mikes,” Will teases.

_ “You literally don’t.” _

“Michael J Fox? I’ve been expecting you to call!”

Another sigh. _ “Michael ‘Worst DM Ever’ Wheeler.” _

“Oh! That Michael! Why didn’t you just say so?”

_ “I  _ could _ hang up and never call back again, you know?” _

Will smiles. “Sorry.”

_ “My mom needs to know what day you guys are coming to stay with us, and if it’s still going to be a full week.” _

“July 23rd, and Mom has to leave Monday morning, but El and I can stay until the 30th. I mean, if that’s still okay with you guys.”

_ “Okay?? That’s perfect! Mom says El can sleep in Nancy’s room since she’s abroad, but you can either sleep in there with her or in my room.” _

“It’ll be yours, obviously.”

_ “I was hoping you’d say that.” _

Will gets a little flutter in his stomach that he’d thought he was done with. It’s pathetic to crush on your adopted sister’s long-distance boyfriend, even if you’d known him since kindergarten. Maybe especially if you’d known him since kindergarten. “Only if you promise not to snore.”

_ “I do NOT snore, William Byers. And as pleasant as these insults are, can you put El on the line?”  _

The sudden change sits like a rock in his gut. Sometimes when Mike asked for El, Will entertained the idea of telling him that she was too busy to come to the phone, but he’d never actually gone through with it. This time would be no different.

“Yeah, sure.”

In a moment, El and Mike are chatting on the phone, though about what, Will can’t really fathom. They don’t usually say things of substance in front of Will, and when they’re 1.) face to face and 2.) not around Will, they’re usually (and it sickens Will to know it) making out. So whatever they talk about on the phone alone together doesn’t interest Will at all. Really.

_ Really. _

He goes back to the room and lays down on his bed, hands placed on his belly and staring at the ceiling. The homeschool jealousy is stupid and managable. This, however, isn’t. Not even the jealousy that she’s dating Mike. That’s—that’s been a thing. Will is used to it. What drives him crazy is the jealousy that everyone he knows is dating constantly. Lucas and Max have been on-again-off-again for four. years. Dustin has had a new girlfriend every summer that he’s come back from Camp Know Where, and each one usually stuck around for at least a month or two. The two girls at school who Will has  _ kind of _ made friends with each have a boyfriend. Even little Erica has her first boyfriend! At this rate, Mike’s baby sister Holly would probably have her first kiss before Will would. Maybe she already had. 

Will is jealous because he feels like he understands and wants every part of a relationship. He wants a cute, awkward slow dance at prom. He wants movie dates and late-night calls and sneaking out. He wants kisses behind the bleachers and notes in his locker. He wants someone to care about him as much as he does them. The problem is just that he wants all of this with a boy. To make matters worse, there’s a specific boy—a specific straight boy—that he wants them with. 

El, on the other hand, is still learning. Every new romantic lesson for her comes from either the movies or from Mike’s explanation. Sometimes she doesn’t even seem interested in Mike’s suggestions, like celebrating Valentine’s Day together:

_ “Max says Galentine’s Day is more fun.” _

Or their anniversary:

_ “I don’t know how you know which day we started dating was. Is it when we kissed, or when we went to the Snow Ball? Or do we have a new day now because we broke up that one time?” _

So Will is jealous because it seems like romance, at the moment, isn’t even that big of a deal to El. Some days, now that Will is nearly an adult, romance devours his every waking moment. Sometimes it’s Mike coming into town and realizing he’s loved Will this entire time. More often, though, it’s a fantasy that a new boy—someone beautiful, someone confident—arrives at school and sweeps Will off his feet. The most common dream he has now that the college search has begun is arriving on campus and immediately falling for his TA, or his RA, or just somebody nice enough to lend him a pen. This would be all the more likely if he could just get the fuck out of Indiana. 

El returns to the room and settles down to do more essay questions.

“Any news?” Will asks.

“He says Max and Lucas broke up.”

“I thought they already were.”

“They got back together at the Fourth of July barbecue.”

“It’s July 6th.”

“Yeah.”

Will mouths the word,  _ Wow.  _ El giggles.

* * *

The Byers (and El, who still goes by Hopper) arrive at the Wheeler house before noon, leaving time for lunch together. Mrs. Wheeler has made sandwiches for everyone and is chatting amicably with Joyce. Mike is catching El and Will up on what’s happened in town since their last phone call: Steve back from college, Robin’s new friend, Erica’s D&D group, so on and so forth. 

“I’m going to go see Max,” El says an hour later. “Do you want to come too?”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea for me,” Mike says. “She’s kind of pissed at us right now. But you and Will are probably fine. I’ll just, like, play Atari or something.”

Without much thought, Will says, “I’ll stay.” El gives him a questioning look. “I figure you both might want girl time,” he rushes to explain. El squints, like she knows Will is up to something. But he doesn’t even know what that would be.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you later.”

Alone, again. When was the last time that had happened? The last time Will had Mike to himself must have been over a year ago. Suddenly, it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore. Maybe he should have gone to see Max after all.

Mike puts Will’s spiral to a stop. “Basement?”

It’s incredibly reassuring to hear that little, familiar  _ creak _ in the penultimate step down to the Wheeler’s basement. A miniscule sensory detail that Will has totally forgotten about until the split-second before it makes the sound, and then it feels like coming home. This is where they’d always played D&D, or any other number of various board games and video games. It’s where Mrs. Wheeler hid their rattiest couch (which was still nicer than the couch in the Byers’ living room). It’s where El had found her first true sanctuary. It’s where, on that Halloween night of 1984, Mike and Will had sworn an oath of sorts:  _ We’ll go crazy together, right?  _ Mike flops down onto the couch like a boy who has never missed this place, like someone taking the magic of this house for granted. Will is taken aback by this new form of jealousy that takes hold of him—for the first time, at least consciously, he’s jealous of  _ Mike _ . Not over. Of.

Will sits at the other end of the couch, sinking into the cushion, savoring the unidentifiable scent of his childhood—aged, dusty, only semi-effectively scrubbed clean with an array of citrus-perfumed cleaning products. He closes his eyes, enjoying the swell of so much history in one space. A contented sigh. When he opens his eyes again, Mike is looking at him. Before Will can say anything, Mike jumps up from the couch and says, “Do you want any snacks? I can get us some snacks.”

“We just had lunch?”

“There’s a ton of Orange Crush in the fridge. I’ll be right back.” And he’s gone.

Weird. Will draws in a ragged breath, sticks his hands under his knees, and grips the fabric of the couch. Has he said something wrong? Done something embarrassing? He can’t believe that simply choosing Mike over Max was too strange; for one, Mike hadn’t reacted at all, and also, Will had done similar things several times before. That’s kind of just how it is when you have a best friend you haven’t seen in ages. He’s worried all the same.

Out the corner of his eye, he spots a printed document laying on the coffee table. It’s not his business, but there’s a word that pops out against the white sheet: Purdue. Against better judgement, he scoots over on the couch to be able to look more closely, scanning the words, his heart jumps into his throat.  _ Merriam-Webster defines "audiovisual" as "designed to aid in learning or teaching by making use of both hearing and sight."  _ Oh boy. That's—Will smirks—from a writing standpoint, that's pretty embarrassing. He pictures Mike sitting at his desk, sleep-deprived, writing the application essay under the dim orange glow of a desk lamp. In pajama pants. Cozy.  _ My greatest achievement in high school has been my work with AV club. _ It's strangely mundane for what they've all been through. Most people probably struggled to come up with their story, or what events have impacted them most. None of the party could write about what they'd been through. So, the audiovisual club. That's a thing too. Will wonders how much the AV stuff has changed since he left, since he's been mostly out of touch on that front. Wonders what Mike has written about it, but there is a series of  _ thump-thump-thumps _ descending the steps. His head snaps up to find Mike clutching two cold, sweating cans of Orange Crush. 

"You started your application already?"

Mike's lips part, but nothing comes out at first. He places the cans on the coffee table, looks about the room, hands clearly fidgeting with something in his pockets. "Um, yeah."

"Purdue?"

"Yeah. Purdue, Notre Dame, Indiana as a safety."

Will doesn't respond. He doesn't know how. 

Mike continues, "Nancy’s been calling me on the weekends to help with the essay—” A huff. “But I’m just kind of freaked out about it because it has to be perfect, right? And what can I actually tell them about? Demogorgons? The Mind Flayer? They’d probably send it back with a note enclosed, like, ‘Please take the college application process more seriously. We will not accept any more letters from you. Oh, also we just sent out a mass message to all of the other colleges not to accept your letters either.”

Will barks out a laugh. “They wouldn’t do that.”

Mike raises his brows.

“Okay, they would, but you totally have other stuff to write about instead. Like, writing about the AV club isn't too bad. Or talk about that book you wrote based on one of our D&D campaigns.”

“I threw it away.”

“What? Why?”

“It was stupid.”

“I had a lot of fun, and so did Dustin and Lucas.”

“Yeah, but you’re my friends. It’s different than with a bigger audience. I don’t know.”

“It’s  _ gone _ gone?”

Mike nods. Something in Will’s chest deflates. He’d never gotten to read the last couple of chapters.

“Y’know, in the part I left off on, Will the Wise was under a guillotine, and I never got to find out if he made it out there,” he prods—only partially joking.

Mike smiles. “I wouldn’t have killed your character. You know that.”

“Well how do you set up stakes in a story if you know none of the main cast are going to die?”

Mike huffs a laugh, and then his smile fades. “That’s only one of many problems that it had. Trust me, if I decide to write something again, I’ll be happy for the practice, but I won’t regret throwing it away.”

Will wants to say,  _ I regret you throwing it away,  _ but he doesn’t want Mike to feel bad about it or think Will is too interested in stuff from their childhood. He hesitates, knowing what he's about to bring up would need to be covered sooner or later.

“I’m looking at, uh, NYU.” He tries to gauge Mike’s reaction: a sigh, hidden tears, anything to let him know Mike would be upset about the distance. But there’s nothing.

“Like Jonathan? That’s awesome!”

“Yeah, or maybe some art schools in California.” Will hesitates. “Like, in San Francisco.”

“Wow,” Mike says. “That—that’s far.”

“Across the country,” Will adds.

They sit in the silence of that realization while it dawns.

“But Max is from California, so it’s not  _ that _ far,” Mike says. 

“I dunno,” Will replies. Then, in a whisper, “I think it’s far.”

“I mean, you’ll be back for breaks and stuff, right?”

That makes Will perk up a bit. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“I wish Hawkins had its own university,” Mike says. But Will knows that he doesn’t want that like Mike does. Not really. “I’m leaning toward Purdue right now, so even if our breaks don’t totally align, maybe you can come there if you’re ever out of school while I’m still in.”

Will feels a grin start to spread across his face.

“I mean,” Mike is looking down at his lap, “After you visit your mom and all that. If you have a couple of days to spare.”

“Yeah!” Will exclaims. “Yeah, definitely.” 

There’s a lull in the conversation when it seems like neither of them know what to say next. 

“Um, Will?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you ever worry about—I don’t mean this offensively—like, you being able to talk to new people if you move that far away?” Yes. God, yes. That was all he ever thought about now. Four years at a new high school and his best friend there is still El. He hasn't been invited to ONE party. Not even because people are intentionally excluding him. He just sucks at new friends. Especially because he doesn't really want them. He already HAS the perfect friend group.

Will sighs and blinks up at the blaring sun streaming through the basement window. “Of course.” He pulls his knees up, socked feet on the couch, wrapping his arms around his legs. “Constantly.”

“And… you still want to leave?”

Will nods. He doesn’t know how to explain it without embarrassing himself. The San Francisco comment had nearly knocked the breath out of him. “It would be worth it,” he says. “To be somewhere I can, you know, be… be… um.” His brain stutters in time with his tongue. Then he settles on, “freer, y’know.”

Mike nods back, almost too roughly, like he’s as embarrassed about the conversation as Will is and doesn’t want him to mention any more. This thing—Will’s preference for guys—is like an open secret now. “I get it,” Mike says. Then, a third silence, and it’s more painful than the others. Will considers just standing up and booking it. He can’t, though, because Mike looks at him earnestly. 

“Is it, y’know, safe?” He asks.

“What?” Will responds, caught off guard.

“Places like San Francisco and New York City. Aren’t they kind of known for, uh,  _ diseases?”  _

Will has no clue what Mike is talking about, but deep inside he feels a clench at the way Mike’s voice trails off. “What?” he says again.

“My dad was talking about VDs and stuff,” Mike said. “Said that big cities with, um, different populations are ‘swarming’ in them.”

Will looks blankly at him.

“VDs? Venereal diseases?”

A beat.

“Like,” Mike struggles, “sex diseases.”

This is the first vague mention between them of the AIDS crisis, yet neither he nor Mike actually know the significance or extent of the events. And it’s 1988. In Hawkins, the topic is generally either silenced or dismissed as the “gay plague.” Will is back on his bike in the snow in 1985 with Troy and his cronies yelling slurs out the car window. He's in front of Melvald's in the dark silence of a small town in the dead of winter, his hands held behind his back, vulnerable to blow after blow from Troy. He feels a phantom ache on his jaw and his forearms. He looks at Mike how he'd looked at Troy. Mike's facial expression twists in sudden devastation.

“I’m not saying that’ll happen to  _ you, _ ” he says. “I—I—Christ, Will. Sorry. I didn’t want to make this—” _ Don’t say weird,  _ Will thinks.  _ Don’t say weird.  _ “—weird.” 

“You did,” Will mutters, shutting his eyes hard like he can blink the moment away.

“I’m sorry. I just meant—” 

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“No, Will, I meant I just care about you being—”

Will shakes his head. He stands up. Mike is looking at him from the couch.

“—safe.”

“How ‘bout you don’t worry about it?” Will says. “Out of sight, out of mind.” It stings to know that this is probably the way of things. The second they leave after that final summer, he’ll be out of Mike’s mind for most of the year while he gains new friends, maybe girlfriends, with whom to concern himself. And Mike must believe that Will is a disaster waiting to happen. Something vile and diseased and damned from the start. He gives Mike a pained look, and Mike stands up. 

Will talks before Mike can change his mind: "I actually do want to go see Max, I think."

"Let me drive you."

"No!" Will says too fervently. Then, embarrassed, quietly. "No, my bike is in my mom's car. You said you didn't want to see Max anyway." It's more bitter than either of them expect, and his words hang in the air between them like a forcefield. Will turns and walks up the stairs, unable to take the silence anymore.

* * *

It’s a particularly hot summer night when El and Will get to see  _ Die Hard  _ with the rest of the party at a drive-in. The party minus Max, who had apparently had little contact with them after her breakup with Lucas. This breakup is going longer than usual—almost 20 days. Lucas tries to play it off like he doesn’t care, but anyone with a single brain cell would be able to tell that it’s bothering him. Will sits in the back seat of Lucas’s car, leaning forward between Lucas and Dustin so that he can see the screen. He’s on popcorn-holding duty. Meanwhile, Mike and El are in the car beside them, probably not watching the movie. It’s none of Will’s business.

“Hey, Will,” Dustin takes a handful of popcorn from the bag, sloughing some stray kernels into the car. It makes Lucas grimace. “So you’re…  _ not  _ staying in Indiana?”

“I mean, I haven’t even applied anywhere yet, so that’s not at all certain,” Will responds. “Senior year is really just around the corner, though.”

“I’m just surprised,” Dustin says. “I thought you’d want to be close to home.”

"Same here."

Dustin whistles a low note. “Almost feels like the band’s breaking up.” He tacks on a little half-hearted laugh and eats his handful of popcorn. Will thinks of Mike’s face down in the basement, the awkward twist of his mouth and his dark brows. “But we’ve been through way more bullshit,” Dustin says. “The party is strong.”

“You’re gonna be like two hours away from Mike, tops. And four, at most, from Lucas.”

“Yeah, if we get _ in _ where we think we’re going!” Lucas says.

“Oberlin is throwing itself at your feet," Will says to Lucas. Then he turns to Dustin. "And  _ you’re _ a shoo-in for Notre Dame, and Mike is—well, he’s Mike. He’ll make it happen.”

“Are you at least gonna apply to backup schools in Indiana?”

“Maybe one,” Will says. “But there are backup schools in other places, too.”

"God, you're killing me, Byers." Dustin takes off his hat, runs a hand through his tangled curls, and places it back on with a flourish. 

When the flick ends, Will says goodnight to Lucas and Dustin, braces himself to become the third wheel, and climbs back into Mike's car. He greets them both with a terse "Hi," and a yawn. Each replies with a friendly enough greeting, but there is something tense, not hostile, in the atmosphere, like El and Mike have just finished a very important and private conversation. Will looks out the window, taps his fingers against his leg. El speaks first.

"How did you like the movie, Will?" It's enough. 

Soon they are chattering about  _ Die Hard.  _ And this branches off into discussion of other movies for the rest of the drive home, with Mike and El and Will arguing about best genres, actors, and plot twists. But it's weird because Will can feel himself only answering to El's questions, adding onto her comments. To speak directly to Mike actually hurts. Each glance between him and Mike feels like an additional push toward the edge of their friendship—like any contact too unguarded would end it all for good. Whenever Mike makes a comment directed at Will or asks him a question, Will gives minimal answers—one-syllable whenever possible. 

At the Wheeler house, Will tells El and Mike a quick goodnight and rushes up to Mike's room. He has considered switching over to sleep with El in Nancy's room; however, the switch would make his cowardice so  _ so _ much more obvious. His plan is to mimic sleep if Mike comes in so that they can avoid any awkward conversation. Will hears the couple talking softly out in the hallway, too quiet to make out much of what they're saying. Mike says "Please." El says something light-hearted, but Mike replies in a grave tone. They kiss. Will tries his best to block them out, melting into his copy of  _ The Light Fantastic _ until Terry Pratchett’s fantastical world dissolves into deep, nightmare-ridden slumber.

* * *

Will, Dustin, and Lucas have been out all morning looking for Mrs. Henderson’s cat, Tews, who has disappeared. A total wild goose chase. 

“In a town this small, he’s gonna turn up soon enough,” Will says. 

“My mom just really loves that cat,” Dustin replies. “And the thing with Mews—that was all my fault! And now it’s my fault again! I never should have called him a freeloader.”

The car jolts, extracting a shocked yelp from Will and Dustin. “Lucas!”

“Sorry!” They’re driving smoothly again. “Did you just say Tews left because you called him a freeloader?” Lucas laughs.

“He’s very sensitive.” Dustin says.

“He’s a cat!”

“Yeah, and they’re _ sensitive! _ ”

“I can’t believe this.” Lucas shakes his head. “Dustin, Tews probably just skipped out the door when it was open,  _ which is a thing stupid cats do because they’re stupid, _ and got run over somewhere.”

_ “Lucas,”  _ Will groans.

“What? It’s probably true. And the sooner he can accept it, the sooner we can stop wasting our morning and meet El and Mike like we said.”

“Tews is probably fine,” Will assures Dustin. Emphasis on the probably.

“I’m not the one who cares about Tews! My mom does!”

“You’re literally tearing up right now.”

“Shut up!”

They give up for the day and Lucas drive to the Wheeler house at noon on the dot. Will looks out the car window with a bundle of nerves buzzing in the pit of his stomach. Lucas and Dustin are arguing about which cassette tape to listen to, but they’d been arguing the whole trip, and were now pulling into the Wheeler driveway with absolutely no music—no sound but that of their own voices. 

“What do you MEAN you’ve never heard of  _ Radio? _ It’s sold like a million copies already!”

“Where’d you even hear about it?”

“My cousin sent it to me! Uncultured, seriously,” Lucas says. Then, he parks and turns around to look at Will in the back seat. 

“Will, man,  _ please _ tell me you’ve heard of LL Cool J.”

Will shakes his head and smiles apologetically. 

“Oh my god,” Lucas sighs, exasperated. “This town doesn’t have real music.”

“Where’s LL Cool J from?” Dustin asks, finally starting to get out of the car.

“Queens! And he released a new album last year too, but I can’t find it.”

As they reach the house’s front door, Will is thinking about Queens, and then his mind is on New York again. Living in a college dorm with a bunch of other students, none of whom know that he’s Zombie Boy. Getting to explore the big city and all its mysteries on his own. Staying overnight with friends or drinking or doing any of the cool adult stuff without the overbearing vigilance of his mother.

He’s awakened from reverie when Mike answers the door. He says his hellos to Lucas and Dustin, but then he’s looking at Will carefully. When he says “Hey,” something about his tone is different than with the last two greetings. Like he’s glad Will even considered coming back. It makes Will want to hug him right then and there; of course,  _ of course, _ he’d always show up. And he fucking has to, considering the fact that this is where the Byers have been staying during every Hawkins visit.

“Where’s El?” Will asks.

“Max’s.”

After ushering the boys in, Mike leads them to his basement where he’s set up his new Atari XEGS—a light grey box with cute pastel buttons that Will admires.

“I have _ Donkey Kong, Archon,  _ and  _ Necromancer, _ ” Mike offers.  _ Necromancer _ it is. The boys sit down and all take turns trying to beat the last score, taking down ogres and spiders who try to poison the trees planted by Illuminar, the wizard protagonist. Dustin tries to sabotage Lucas’s spider egg crushing mission during Act II, and when Mike tries to beat the evil necromancer Tetragorn in Act III, Lucas quietly sneaks up behind him and cups his hands around Mike’s eyes, blinding him, while Dustin pokes Mike’s ribs at random, distracting. Despite the impairments, Mike is laughing and jerking around trying to play the game anyway. “Guys—Guys, stop! Oh my god! Hahahahahahahahaha—no—ahahaha— stop please—aaahhhhhajdijidfiogjigrroj.” His laughter drowns out the 8-bit tune and Will smiles at his three best friends. “You—hah—cheaters,” Mike yelps. Illuminar is running around nonsensically among the pink tombstones, but Mike must be able to see through Lucas’s fingers because he’s avoiding the spiders with expert dexterity. 

Colorful bars flash on the screen, signaling the end of Mike’s round of  _ Necromancer.  _

“FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND AND FOUR HUNDRED?!” Dustin screams. “NOT FAIR. THIS IS RIGGED. YOU COULDN’T EVEN SEE THE SCREEN!”

Dustin’s score, sitting firmly in the 47 K range, was the worst at the moment. “Yeah, well, I own the game, so.” Mike shrugs and smirks. 

“I’m not giving you five dollars,” Dustin grumbles.

“Shoulda thought about that before you bet I couldn’t break fifty thousand!”

“No, man! You get to play this all the time! It’s not fair!”

“GUYS,” Lucas shouts. “It’s Will’s turn to play. Argue later.”

When Will sits down and reboots the game and the 8-bit theme springs into action, he feels the other three watching him and decides he needs to at _ least _ beat Dustin’s score. He breezes through the first two Acts, but as soon as Act III begins, his eyes are covered from behind and he feels stubby fingers poking him hard and at random all over his back and sides. He chokes in surprise even though he’d been expecting it, and he hears Lucas and Dustin giggling like little children. All the while, Will tries to pry Lucas’s hands off of his face with one hand while maneuvering through the graveyard with the other, gasping “stop” through giggles of his own. 

“C’mon, Mike,” Dustin whispers behind his back.

Will’s defensive hand is yanked off of Lucas’s by a new player—presumably Mike. 

“Stop, guys, seriously I can’t play like this!” Will laughs. He can barely see through Lucas’s fingers.

_ “That’s the pointttttt,” _ Dustin sing-songs.

“Oof. Hahahaahadjffj. When I’m done with this—ahahaha—you guys will regret this ahahaha—I’m gonna—gonna—”

“Gonna  _ what, _ Will?” Mike is leaning over Will with his chest pressed against Will’s left shoulder while he covers the keyboard with long, spidery fingers. What had been fun and games to Will a moment ago was now sending electricity through his entire system. The warmth between their bodies sets his senses at full attention. And there’s the way that their hands are touching as Will struggles for the keyboard. 

“Watch out, Will is gonna take us outside and kick our asses afterwards,” Lucas laughs.

Will flings an elbow backwards to try and shuck Lucas off. Lucas jumps back to avoid the impact and whistles. Will gets to see just a flash of his score—46,989—before Mike’s hands leave the keyboard and jump up to cover his eyes. 

“Fuck! Man, he’s almost got my score,” Dustin whines.

“I still want that five dollars,” Mike says. 

Their voices sound far away because the soft pressure of Mike’s fingers against Will’s face has made heat rise up to his cheeks. “Michael Wheeler, release my face, please and thank you,” he says, trying to normalize the situation. But this just makes Mike pull backwards, tilting Will’s head up, the back of his head softly coming into contact with Mike’s T-shirt covered solar plexus. The  _ Necromancer _ theme shuts off, announcing to the room that it’s Game Over. Dustin makes a melodramatic screeching noise out somewhere to Will’s right side, so he knows that he has beaten 47 K. Mike laughs, and Will likes the sound of it more than the game’s theme music. While his head is still tilted upward, he imagines Mike bending down to chastely press his lips against Will’s, but in reality, Mike’s hands come away from his eyes and give him a congratulatory pat on his shoulders—decidedly platonic.

Third place. Literally not the worst he could do.

“Pay up,” Mike says to Dustin, who reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled bill.

“You’re a lot nicer when El is around.” Dustin hands it over. “It’s weird without them here.” Next to him, Lucas is pulling a face that’s caught between irritation and sadness. 

“We’re gonna have to get used to it,” Mike says.

All at once, Dustin, Lucas, and Will’s heads snap up. Simultaneous: “What?!”

“They’re gonna be gone most of August because of this road trip that El was telling me about. Max’s cousin is getting married in California, and I guess El is her date to the wedding,” he explains.

“They need a whole month for that?” Will asks.  _ This _ must have been what El and Mike were talking so seriously about.

“Well, they’re going site-seeing, and Max is visiting colleges, too.”

Dustin quirks a brow in Mike’s direction. “Does that bother you?” 

“No,” he responds. “A month is nothing.” But why would Mike have reacted with so much gloom to the news if he thought everything would be fine?

“I miss ‘em,” Dustin says. “Remember when we only hung out with each other? We’re so enlightened about women now.” 

“Sure,” Lucas says, bitterness clear in his voice. “Feels like it’s 1982 again.”

“Yeah,” Mike tosses a glance at Will. “It does.”

After a couple of hours wasted with a good time, the boys are sitting outside the Wheeler house with a small bonfire as the sun goes down. Even though the night is hot, Will has pulled a blanket over his bare legs to avoid mosquito bites. Lucas and Mike are sharing a blanket of their own while Dustin pokes at the fire.

“Did you hear Mr. Clarke is leaving Hawkins Middle?” Lucas says. 

“What?” Dustin jabs the stick into the fire too hard and a burning log falls near Mike’s feet. He yelps.

“Yeah, he’s gonna get better pay somewhere in Noblesville.”

Mike scowls at Dustin. “Plus, I think his wife’s family is from there.”

Maybe Dustin is right. Maybe it _ is _ like the band is breaking up.

“I really thought she was, like, a beard,” Dustin says. “I guess it’s real though.”

“What?” Lucas exclaims. “Are you crazy?”

“I got some vibes from him and we live in a tiny town. It’s  _ not _ crazy!”

Will fidgets with the candy wrapper in his hands. He pretends that he doesn’t see Mike looking at him out the corner of his eye.

“They’ve been together _ five years,  _ Dustin!” 

“You think there’s a limit for how long someone can go without sucking—”

“Please,” Mike interrupts. “I don’t want to think about Mr. Clarke in the bedroom. Period.”

“Besides, that’s not something you can just tell about a person,” Lucas says.

“Yuh-huh!” Dustin says.

“Nuh-uh.”

God, please let this conversation end soon.

“Guys—” Mike looks like he’s going to interrupt again. Will doesn’t like the idea of Mike’s courtesy to him in the form of saying,  _ hey you both know Will is different than us and we shouldn’t be talking about how weird it is right in front of him.  _ Will shocks himself by speaking up first.

_ “Please, _ Dustin, you had no idea I liked guys until Jennifer Hayes asked me out and I literally cried.” He delivers the comment like his brain isn’t short-circuiting. The open secret is now just… open. 

“Hah!” Lucas shouts. “See!”

Dustin looks mortified, realizing how careless he’d been.

Mike and Lucas are both laughing at Dustin now, and it feels normal.

Will can’t believe this feels so normal. 

Two hours later, Dustin and Lucas are griping about it being Sunday night and the fact that they have work tomorrow. The sky is totally black, and Will is already sensing the pull of sleep. Mike has stopped trying to keep the fire going. It’s slowly winding down. Mrs. Wheeler comes out of the back door and motions for Mike to come talk to her, so he does. Will watches his figure fade into darkness, the way the burning embers shine against his retreating back. 

“Will!” Lucas calls out.

“Yeah?”

“You’re still applying for schools in California?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Popular place recently,” he says, an edge in his voice. Will doesn’t know how to respond. “What part?”

“San Francisco.”

“Holy shit, like Stanford?”

“No. No, oh my god. Imagine. They’d turn me down before the application even arrived. No, I’m just looking at the University of San Francisco and some of the liberal arts schools. Also New York. I’m casting kind of a wide net.” He laughs awkwardly.

“Man,” Lucas says. “I was gonna look at some northeast schools, but Oberlin is sending me a letter pretty much every day.”

“What?” Dustin throws his hands up. “First Will, then Mr. Clarke, now you? Why is everyone trying to get out of here? What’s wrong?.” 

Lucas shrugs. “Listen, I love Hawkins, but it’s—”

“Suffocating,” Will says.

Lucas looks up at him, surprised. “Yeah.”

“WHAT? Hawkins is awesome!” Dustin asserts.

Lucas and Will share a look, like they’re agreeing on something that’s going to stay unsaid. Is it possible to be outsiders in a group made of outsiders?

When Mike returns, he tells them that Mrs. Wheeler is cool with them sleeping over if they want to, but Lucas and Dustin both cite having work in the morning as their reason for leaving.

“Drive safe!” Mike calls out the door at Lucas’s car, which is pulling out of the driveway. A hand comes out of the rolled down window and flips him the bird. Lucas had crashed into his family’s mailbox just two weeks ago, and now “drive safe” is a sore spot that Mike and Dustin like to aggravate. Will and Mike laugh as the car disappears. They stand in the doorway for just a moment. “Oh!” Mike says. “I have something for you. Let me run and get it.” 

Will is taken aback. It’s not a holiday and his birthday has already happened. What could Mike possibly have for him? He walks up to Mike’s bedroom to change into pajamas, and then returns to the living room, where Mike is still nowhere to be found.

“Get ready, Will!” Mike exclaims, coming back up the staircase. He turns and Mike is right up close to him, grinning and holding something behind his back. Mike’s smile and energy are completely childish, like the 12 year-old version of himself has returned and taken over 17 year-old Mike’s body. The same deepened voice, the same 5’10 stature, the baby fat gone in his face, but it’s still that boy who unabashedly proposed friendship to Will all those years ago. “Close your eyes,” Mike instructs.

“What?”

“C’mon, just do it.” He does it.

“Now, Will, I don’t know if you know this, but I tend to shove my foot in my mouth quite a lot. I also realize that I upset you recently. And  _ you _ are my best friend on Earth, so I couldn’t just let that slide.”

“It’s okay,” Will says.

“Well, it will be once I say I’m sorry. And I  _ am _ sorry. And this is a token of apology. Now open your eyes.”

Will looks down to see a little composition notebook that’s labeled  _ Will the Wise and the Vanishing Act: The Great Guillotine Escape.  _ He yanks it from Mike’s hands and starts turning the pages with a wide smile stretching across his face. “What? No way.”

“A satisfying conclusion for my most valued reader.”

“You wrote this?” He flips to the end page. “As an apology?”

“Yeah.”

“Mike. It’s eighty pages long.”

“Yeah.”

“Our talk was two days ago.”

“...Yeah.”

“How did you finish this much?”

Mike looks at the floor. “Stayed up most of the night. It’s not a big deal, though. I wanted to know the ending too.”

That’s why the circles under his eyes are darker than usual. Will stares at Mike. The notebook is limp in his hands. It’s taking so much to stop himself from flinging his arms around Mike and kissing his face right here right now. Instead, he mumbles, “Thank you. I’m literally reading this entire thing tomorrow.”

“Good. Good.” Mike rolls onto his heels and back a couple of times. When he stops: “I was serious about you coming to visit my dorm during breaks. And maybe I can come to the big city, whichever one it is.”

Will nods. “Definitely.”

“Cool.” Mike’s eyes shift to a couple of different places before they land on Will’s. He was usually fidgety, but this was worse than usual. “I’m gonna go change into pajamas. Will you meet me downstairs?”

“Sure.”

Will steps into the basement to find that Mike has expanded the blanket fort to make it larger. As he’s standing there taking in the sight, Mike comes down the stairs holding a box that’s full of magazines. 

“What’s this?”

“Mom was gonna throw out Nancy’s old teenybopper magazines, and I said ‘No, Mom. You’re about to deprive me of the best night of my life. Is that what you want? Do you want me to have serotonin or not?’ And she let me keep them.”

Will squints back at him.

“Seriously, look at these.”

Will comes down the steps and takes a peek into the box.  _ Bop, Teen Beat, Seventeen. _ Mike pulls out one with Molly Ringwald on the cover and an article entitled “THE SEXY SIX: Spring’s Best New Hairstyles” and “17 BEAUTY BLUNDERS TO AVOID.” He throws it down into the floor of the blanket fort. “Too bad Lucas left,” he says. “He’s in love with Molly Ringwald.” Then he grabs one with John Stamos, sporting a white tank top, a tall hair-do, and a smoulder, on the cover. He hands it to Will. Will wants to avoid Stamos’s gorgeous face, and instead throws it into the pile with Molly. And then he has one more shoved into his hands with promises of “Ralph Macchio’s Secret Wedding!” and “KIRK! Be his date!” He wonders how much ironic enjoyment Mike can possibly get from them.

“Ooh! This one has a quiz inside.” Mike holds it out like he’s singing from a binder at church. “‘Which teen heartthrob is your soulmate?’ Please, Will, this is hilarious.”

Will musters an unsure smile.

“‘You're out shopping when a gorgeous hunk—” Mike waggles his eyebrows. “—strides past you. What're your eyes drawn to first?

  1. His beautiful hair.
  2. His broad, muscular shoulders.
  3. His winning smile.
  4. His confident stride.’” 



And then he waits like he’s really expecting Will to answer. Will sighs. “Uh, gee, I don’t know. His hair?”

Mike marks the answer with a pen. He continues: “‘Nothing gets you going like a man who is:

  1. Good with his hands—(Man, if Mom knew Nancy was reading this!)
  2. Clever.
  3. Muscled.
  4. Loyal.’” 



“Loyal.”

“‘Do you want your guy to be nice and muscular’ — Seriously, what is  _ up  _ with these magazines and muscles?”

Will laughs. “They’re for teen girls who like heartthrobs, not gangly nerds like you.”

“Are you saying I’m not a heartthrob?” 

“You sure don’t have the muscles for it,” Will teases. 

Mike scoffs. “I could compete with John Stamos.” He picks up the magazine and holds it next to his face like he wants Will to make the comparison. Will can’t tell him that he’s right.

“Excuse me, Mr. Michael ‘Teenybop Heartthrob’ Wheeler. It’s just that I heard playing D&D automatically disqualifies you from the running.” 

“Mm-hm. Okay, well the answers are basically ‘As much muscle as possible,’ ‘some muscle,’ and ‘not really my thing.’ So what’ll it be?”

He can’t say the truth because it’s standing right in front of him. “I’ll take some muscle,” he finally responds. Will is nervous, but it doesn’t seem like Mike can tell. It’s like they’re really doing this ironically: like Mike has forgotten that these are Will’s real answers.

Five questions later, they’ve migrated to the blanket fort, laying side-by-side on their stomachs, and the results are in. Mike performs a muffled drum roll on the carpet. “Aaaaaaaaaand, your soulmate isssssssssss… Keanu Reeves.”

Will leans over to look at the magazine and his photo. “He’s cute, but I don’t really follow celebrities so this has been anticlimactic.”

“It’s about the journey, Will, not the destination.”

“What’s that even mean?”

“Well, for instance, now I know you’re into semi-muscled guys with alternative styles and that you prefer  _ Nine to Five _ to  _ The Karate Kid— _ Really?”

“Sometimes it’s more fun to watch women stick it to the man than it is to see a boy painting a house.”

“Unbelievable.”

“El loves that movie. We used to watch it together all the time.”

Mike goes quiet. It’s the reaction Will would have expected from Lucas about Max, but not from Mike about El. Not when they seemed to be on good terms. 

He elbows Mike lightly. “Who’s your teenybop soulmate?”

The ghost of a smile plays across Mike’s face and the only sound in the house is now pen scratching on glossy paper. When he’s done, he says, “River Phoenix.” 

“I don’t know who that is either.”

“Chris in  _ Stand By Me?” _

“Are you happy with your new husband?”

“Dunno. He has a nice jawline,” Mike says. Will laughs, hard.

“What?” Mike becomes defensive. “My mom’s always talking about actors’ jawlines.”

“I just didn’t expect you to say that.” He can’t believe he’s sitting here ogling boys with Mike Wheeler, even if it’s all a joke.

“You said you’d notice a guy’s hair. Do you notice their jawlines?”

It’s a rather direct question that makes Will pause. Who wants to know what his gay friend looks for in another guy? Ugh, God. Don’t get your hopes up.

“Not really.” But now he is. Maybe on a subconscious level he’d noticed Mike’s chiseled features before—he wouldn’t fit in a teenybopper magazine, but he does look as though he belongs in an artsy photography studio somewhere. Will’s eyes flick to Mike’s cheekbone on the visible side of his face, pass the curve of his lips, and drag down toward his jaw. He looks back up, guilty. Mike is staring at him too. Is it just Will, or has all of the oxygen been sucked out of the universe?

Then, Mike yawns and flips over onto his back, face toward the blanket ceiling that’s just slightly concaving. Will’s heart thrums in his chest. He sets his voice with a false gaiety: “If I didn’t know how statistically improbable it was, I would think you were trying to tell me something with that jawline talk.” It’s bold. A shot in the dark. And still the most passive way Will could have possibly asked.

Mike shakes his head no, eyes now closed. “Plenty of girls with nice jawlines too,” he yawns. Will finally settles on his side, facing away from Mike, and when he says “Good night,” there’s no response since Mike has already dissolved into sleep.

* * *

_ “I must have left a thousand times, _

_ But there's a small town in my mind. _

_ How can I leave without hurting everyone that made me? _

_ How can I leave without hurting everyone that made me?” _

— “Small Town Moon,” Regina Spektor


	2. Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: underage drinking, lots of swearing
> 
> Alternately titled: No betas we die like men  
> Alternately titled: Mike doesn't know how to talk about bisexuality bc it's the late '80s  
> Alternately titled: Byelers Can Have Little a Byclair, As A Treat

**August 1988**  
  
Will wakes in a cold sweat, his heart plummeting. His hands are clammy, and the fan which typically blows away the hot summer air is making him freeze. The cold reminds him of his time under the Mind Flayer’s influence. The memory reels his stomach and pounds his heart.  
  
The nightmare. Thrown _in medias res_ out in front of Melvald’s during that first Christmas Eve back in Hawkins, his arms held tight behind his back by some terrifying goons who are probably trying to compensate for something. The wetness of snow soaking through his sweater, the ubiquitous stench of liquor, his restricted breath (because somehow the violent fucks make him believe his very act of breathing is a crime. he despises them for it.) Been hit already, can tell by the pain in his gut. As Troy approaches him, he braces for the impact of that first punch against his jaw.   
  
It doesn’t come. Instead, Troy leans in.

El is awake for pre-dawn packing and final goodbyes. Will finds her in the kitchen, eating a hastily-tossed-together granola breakfast with his mom, who’s sipping her regular morning coffee with cream. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and says “Good morning.” It surprises El.   
  
_“Will,_ I told you goodbye last night so you wouldn’t have to wake up this morning.”  
  
“I know,” he replies. “But I wanted to actually see you off.”  
  
El sets down her bowl of granola and wraps him in a tight hug.  
  
"When is Max getting in?"  
  
"5:30."  
  
Joyce rattles off a list of items that El should double-check she's packed while Will tries his best to stay awake, hand propping up his head from where he sits at the kitchen table. He must doze off because he wakes to the sound of the front door opening and Max's voice in soft greeting. He yawns, pours himself a glass of orange juice from the plastic jug in the fridge and brings it over to the doorway, where El and Max are sharing their reunion hug. Max glances at him over El's shoulder, seems to think for a moment, and then once she's finished her embrace with El, she steps over to Will and hugs him too. He's surprised—stifles a gasp, pausing, but hugs her back tightly. How long has it been?  
  
"How’s your summer been?" she asks. The regret for avoiding him is clear in her face.  
  
"Fine," he says. "Great, actually. Parts of it." He lets her go, awkwardly. "Kind of a rollercoaster."  
  
"I know the feeling."  
  
"Are you excited for the wedding?"  
  
"Excited. Kind of ticked about the dress my mom wants me to wear, _but it matches the party._ " Max whines the last part in a bitter imitation of her mother. It brings laughter to El and Will.  
  
Max turns to El. "How'd he take it?" She asks.   
  
El looks down at her shoes—saddle oxfords from the local thrift store. "I think he saw it coming," she says. "Since I first mentioned the trip. He said if I was only leaving for a month it wasn't a problem, since we've been doing long distance all along. But I said we don't know if the long distance thing is ever going to change, so we might as well start getting used to it now. He didn't want to talk to me after that."  
  
"He wouldn't _talk_ to you?" Max asks.  
  
"Well, he was upset."  
  
"That's not an excuse."  
  
"He didn't say goodbye."  
  
Will has been standing silently to the side during this exchange, his brain reeling, moving at full speed and yet unable to catch up with El's words. Had she left Mike? For good this time?  
  
"That's fucked," Max says. "But the separation will be good for you. It makes break ups easier." She nods wisely, like she's had one too many experiences with it.   
  
This doesn't seem to comfort El. "I still want to be best friends with him," El says, dejected.  
  
"Come _on,_ El. He's not worth it."  
  
"What's my alternative?" Alternative. Another of their vocabulary words. "Never speaking to him again?" El doesn't mention Lucas, but the implication is clear in her words. Max's eyes grow defensive, but she doesn't blow up like she would at anyone else—because it's El.  
  
"Okay. Not never again. But less."  
  
There's a short silence, as if they'd remembered that Will was nearby. He clears his throat, simultaneously swiping El's key off the table, slipping it into his shirt sleeve. His cough drowns the sound of metal sliding against wood.  
  
"El," he says casually. "Did you remember your keys?"  
  
"Yes. They are right here." Her hand darts out to pick them up but stutters when it hits the table's flat surface. "Um. I thought I did."  
  
"Maybe they're in your room?" Will suggests.  
  
El huffs and heads upstairs. Will turns to Max, who is eyeing him skeptically.  
  
"Where are the keys?" She asks.   
  
He slips them out of his sleeve and holds them out.   
  
She quirks a brow. "It's always the quiet ones."  
  
"Listen, Max—What happened? They're actually done?"  
  
"Yeah. If we're lucky."  
  
"No chance of getting back together?"  
  
"What has you so interested?"  
  
"No reason. It's just... It's happened before, you know."  
  
"And you couldn't ask El yourself?"  
  
"I mean, she probably wouldn't want to give me—"  
  
"The dirty details?"  
  
"Well. Yeah."  
  
She glares at him just long enough to make his skin crawl. "Do you feel guilty for asking?"  
  
"No." He says, you know, like a liar.  
  
Max crosses her arms, a barrier between them. "Why don't you ask Mike then?"  
  
He splutters.   
  
"He's your _best friend_ , isn't he?" She says. There's a bite to her tone that Will can't read.  
  
"I mean, yeah?" He stares at her, dumbfounded. "But that would be mean, I think. To ask him."  
  
"Like he doesn't deserve it."  
  
"What?"   
  
Max looks at him blankly. Will feels an inkling of recognition at the back of his mind.  
  
"Do you hate Mike?" He asks. The suddenness of his accusation startles Max, regret growing in her eyes.  
  
She exhales. "You don't?"  
  
That's weird. Will doesn't think anyone could _hate_ Mike besides maybe Troy and his cronies. What is there to hate? Sure, maybe he's been flakey from time to time, but that was mostly just before the Byers moved away. And sometimes he's too conscious of what other people think of him. And he's _totally oblivious._  
  
"I—"  
  
"Okay, I don't hate him." Max sniffs and looks away. "But I don't know why everyone's life revolves around him. He's one of the most insecure people I've ever met— the way he treats El? Like she's a toy he won at the Hawkins fair?"  
"That's not true."  
  
" _Yes, it is._ You know it, and more importantly, _she_ knows it now."  
  
Will is silent. It's true, but what a betrayal it would be to corroborate Max's charges.   
  
"I don't know what it is that makes him do it," she says. "He's like a regular friend when it's just a few of us together, and he's supportive and nice I guess, but when it's all of us, it's like a switch turns on and they can't keep their hands off each other. And the fact that they don't do it all the time—it's like he's playing a role. And at school he talks about her to the more popular guys like he's trying to use her to get in with them."  
  
Will had not expected that. "The popular guys?"  
  
"He wasn't into the cool crowd or anything until a couple of years ago—and I guess you wouldn't have noticed since you're not at school with us—but now he's always trying to prove that he's normal to kids at school. The thing is, NONE of us are normal! Not after all the shit we've seen, and honestly not even _before_ that."  
  
"...Nancy…" Will mutters.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Nancy was like that too for a while. When she dated Steve. Before she started seeing Jonathan. She was in with a crowd that didn't really care about who she was."  
  
"So Mike is going to magically stop being an idiot when he dates a weird girl?" Max asks, bitter sarcasm twisting its way into her tone. "El already is the weird girl."  
  
"Well, it's more like he might stop if he gets forced out of his comfort zone." Will shrugs. Really? Mike is trying to be normal? What happened to creative, jittery Mike who had always complimented Will when he felt most alienated? It hurts Will somewhere deep in his core to know Mike is ashamed of the very thing for which he'd endlessly praised Will— his uniqueness.  
  
Max sighs. "Look, I feel bad for the guy, okay? But that's not an excuse for how he's been treating El."   
  
"You're right."   
  
"And, god, I'm sorry, but it's always been kind of sketchy. El had so little experience with the world— okay, not the world, because she's experienced more than us— but with the teenage world. And anything he says goes! It's not so bad when you're twelve, but he's had too much power over her!" Will doesn't know how to react to the sudden rant. Max is getting worked up like she's never been able to vent about it before. He feels awkward, but lets her speak without interruption. "For the longest time, the TV and Mike were her only sources for information about how relationships work! Hopper definitely never talked to her about being safe around boys! He just shut her out from everyone."  
  
"I agree with you," Will says. It's partly truth and partly an attempt to calm her down before anything gets out of hand. "But Mike would never take advantage of her like that. He knows she's not… like… up to date on everything."  
  
Max fumes. "If he knows she's at, like, fifth-grade romance comprehension, then he shouldn't be dating her at all. It's weird."  
  
Will lowers his voice conspiratorially. "I know!" he says. "I don't get how dating her doesn't feel wrong to him. He was so intent on growing up, but their relationship is so childish!" He thinks by the spark in Max's eye that he's just earned a point of trust, but she glances downward at something behind him. He whips around in time to see the dawn of El's scowl. His gut sinks.  
  
"I'm not a child," she says. "I am seventeen."  
  
El looks down at her keys, dangling between Will's fingers. She reaches forward and reclaims them with an unopposed yank. Though Will is several inches taller than her, her burning glare makes him feel miniscule. "I can date or break up with whoever I want. Why would you talk behind my back?"  
  
"I'm so sorry, El. I didn't mean it like that—"  
  
"Tell him why you broke up with Mike," Max interjects.  
  
El doesn't seem to know to whom she should respond. She looks between the two conspirators and then settles on Will alone.  
  
"Mike doesn't trust me," she says.  
  
"Yes he does," he says, then winces. Has defending Mike always been a reflex of his? Or was he trying to save El's feelings?  
  
"No he doesn't," Max says. "He's super overprotective."  
  
"Yeah, because he loves her!" Will shuts his eyes hard.  
  
"He loves you too," El asserts. "Don't you think he's overbearing? Did he not bother you when you came back from the Upside Down or after the Mind Flayer possessed you?"  
  
This brings Will pause. "No," he admits, looking back and forth between El and Max. "No, he always trusted me to tell him when something was wrong." And Will had betrayed that trust many times for the sake of not troubling the others.   
  
"See?" Max claps a hand on Will's shoulder. "He trusts you but not El. It's because you're a boy. It's sexist."  
  
"I would think it's more like he's extra protective of El because she's a girl," Will says.  
  
Max rolls her eyes. "It's the same thing."  
  
But what Will means is that Mike would gladly protect a girl he cares about. It's not so clear he would do the same for his completely platonic male friend, i.e. Will. But Max is convinced that it's an act of prejudice. Maybe it's both: an example of Mike's affection and also an antiquated way to treat one's girlfriend.   
  
Ex-girlfriend.   
  
"I just meant—I don't know what I meant."  
  
El's arms are crossed, mirroring Max from earlier. She looks hurt. Will is about to apologise when she says, "I'm not childish. _You_ are childish. You haven't even kissed anyone."  
  
He steps backward, bumping into the table. His eyes begin to sting.  
  
"Let's go, El." Max swings El's duffle bag over her shoulder and heads out the door. El stands for a moment in the doorway, glowering at Will. He looks back. Silence.  
  
El breaks the staring match first. She turns around without a word and heads outside.

* * *

 **September 1988**  
  
It's finally beginning to cool down a bit outside, though the trees are still green and full of life. Will was sick of the hazy summer heat—it made him feel numb, lethargic, and mindless. Summer had once been his favorite season, something to do with the subconscious reassurance of warmth, which would dissuade the Mindflayer from settling into his body like a parasite burrowing into flesh. Although there was no need to worry anymore, the assurance was comforting.  
  
It had been, anyway.  
  
As his co-workers hang up their aprons, Will stares down at his best shoes, impeccably polished to a mirror-like shine, except for the small scuff where an elderly woman dressed in beige furs and sharp heels had stepped on his toe. She hadn't apologized.   
  
"Byers?" A voice snaps him from his thoughts. His boss is standing before him in a full tuxedo. The man gestures toward some white-clothed tables underneath some gaudy golden chandeliers, the size of which is nearly threatening. "Will you bus those last few tables? Charlotte had a little spill so she had to head out early." He knows it's not a question. Obediently, Will goes to the table to pick up the scattered plates and wine glasses. His legs move without his control. The moment between the grand dining hall and the kitchen is a blur, until his foot catches on a raised floor tile and sends him tumbling to the floor. The pile of wine glasses hits the ground and every single one shatters. Will watches his paycheck dwindle right before his eyes. It's only when he stands up that he realizes that both his palms are bleeding.  
  
"BYERS!" his boss shouts. The tension in his body finally bursts, and he sobs. He misses El.

Will's mom sits with him on the living room couch while she bandages his hands. He winces under the hydrogen peroxide, feeling like a child again. But when had he started feeling grown? Clearly he _had_ at some point, or the thought wouldn't strike him at all.  
  
When she finishes, Joyce cups his hands between hers and stares at them like they might disappear into thin air. They're both quiet for a moment.  
  
"Do you want to go to Hawkins again?" She asks.   
  
Will blinks. It's an offer he wasn't expecting.  
  
"You've been so out of it recently," she continues. "It breaks my heart. I didn't realize that El's trip would affect you so much. Are you talking to anyone at school?"  
  
Will shakes his head. She must already know because the answer is always the same. In truth, since August he thinks he has gone weeks without speaking to anyone aside from Mom.  
  
She sighs, sad and pitying. "I want you to go. I'll write you an excuse for school and you can take a Greyhound."  
  
"But mom—"   
  
"I'll pay for your ticket."  
  
"No! I can pay. I have extra money since we got those college application fees waived."  
  
She fixes him with a stern look. "Will, I'm your _mom_. I'm paying. Keep that paycheck and do something fun in Hawkins. Take the boys for ice cream or something."  
  
"We're seventeen."  
  
"You love ice cream!"   
  
Will laughs softly. He had been submerged in helplessness, but now a welcome warmth spreads through him.  
  
Joyce smiles back, relieved. "Call Mrs. Sinclair or Ms. Henderson this time. We're imposing on the Wheelers," she suggests.  
  
Will nods. He doesn't notice the pain under his bandages.

_"What? My mom loves you!"_ Mike says through the phone. Will pictures him sitting at his bedroom desk, black hair a mess and physics books strewn across the floor. He thinks the layout of Mike's room will be embedded in his mind forever.  
  
"I know," Will replies smugly. "But Mom's orders! And Lucas’s mom already said yes.”  
  
 _"What are best friends for if not crashing in your house?"_  
  
"Lucas is my best friend too."  
  
 _"Okay, but not…"_ Mike trails off. His line is quiet. Will thinks a pencil might have rolled off his desk. _"Like us."_  
  
"We're all each other's best friends," Will explains.  
  
 _"Well, yeah, but it's like—"_ Mike is struggling. Maybe the pencil has rolled underneath his desk. _"We're on a different level, you know?"_  
  
Will can't help the small grin that grows across his cheeks. He doesn't think too hard before responding, "Are you _jealous_ , Michael?" with a teasing note in his voice.  
  
Mike is quiet. After a beat, he says, _"Oh fuck you."_  
  
Laughter bursts from Will.  
  
 _"My house has the best basement, the best games, and the best snacks,"_ Mike argues. _"And don't you forget it."_  
  
"Awww, you can still come and hang out with Lucas and I while we're on our friend dates."  
  
 _"You know what? Don't even bother coming back."_ Mike says.   
  
Will laughs.   
  
_"I'm serious,"_ Mike says in a way that is very much not serious. _"I never want to see you again."_ And then they're both laughing.   
  
As their conversation dwindles, after an additional ten minutes spent on Mike's latest video game exploits, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler's habitual arguing, and _The Blob,_ Will wants to ask Mike how he's holding up. The breakup is still a recent and unbroached topic. He knows Lucas and Dustin must have talked to Mike about it, but he's been kept out of the loop on that front. He swallows the impulse. Mike says a fond goodbye and hangs up. Will starts packing for the Greyhound trip. 

It's noon on a Friday when Will arrives at the Sinclair residence, so Lucas is still at school. Mrs. Sinclair gives him a long hug that makes Will think she's talked on the phone with his mom about him. It's comforting, though, to be in a house clearly occupied by a loving, if occasionally dysfunctional, married couple and their two children. The closest to this Will's ever felt was when his mom was dating Bob all those years ago. He feels a stab of guilt for the few months he’s gone without thinking about Bob, then makes a note to visit his grave while in town. It's more of a cenotaph, since they had no remains to bury. The thought will make him physically ill if he goes further, so he shakes his head like it's an etch-a-sketch, erasing bad memories. He comes to the memory that Mrs. Sinclair had attended his funeral while he was in the Upside Down. She knows what his coffin looked like, what the town said of him when they believed him shuffled off from this existence. She knows her son is friends with a dead boy. It creeps Will out.  
  
"Are you off work today, Mrs. Sinclair?" He asks, setting his bag down on Lucas's desk.  
  
"That's right," she says. "I took off so someone would be here when you came by, sweetie."  
  
Will frowns. "Oh. Sorry—"  
  
"No, don't worry about it. I've been meaning to take a break anyway," she clarifies. Mrs. Sinclair scans the room like she's making sure Lucas has cleaned properly for his guest, and then meets Will's eyes with a friendly smile. "Those other boys he hangs out with are rowdy, but not you. We're glad to have you here. Take your time unpacking, and when you're ready, come catch me up. I swear the last time I saw you, you were about three heads shorter and wearing a little Beatles cut."  
  
Will laughs. "Sounds right. Will do."  
  
As her footsteps echo down the hall, he unpacks his pajamas from his duffle bag. While lifting the bag, he knocks some papers off the desk which flutter to the wood floor. Closer inspection reveals that they are photographs, some lying face-up, others lying white side up with dates and captions written with Sharpie. There's a flash of red hair covered by another flipped photo. Will bends down to pick them up, and he means to immediately put them back on the desk in a neat stack, but one image catches his attention.  
  
It's Max.  
  
She must be fifteen or sixteen in the photo because she has a cast on her arm from a spill she took off her skateboard in Sophomore year. It has exactly five signatures—one each from Lucas, Dustin, El, Mike and Will.   
  
The sun is setting, causing everything in frame to emit a yellow glow. Will learned about the effect from Jonathan—The Golden Hour, he'd called it. Max is sitting on the hood of Lucas's car, flashing a dazzling, genuine smile at the photographer behind the camera. It strikes Will deep inside. No one has ever smiled at him like that before. And, at this rate, nobody ever would.  
  
The constant bickering between Max and Lucas over the years has disguised the, Will now realizes, _very real_ fact of their love for one another. He doesn't know if that love is still there.  
  
He pages through the other photos in his hands. Some include Dustin or Mike, and even fewer include El and Will since they all seem to be taken post-move, but in every. single. one. Max is front and center.   
  
Will pictures Lucas sitting down at his desk as recently as this morning, gazing at photos of Max. It's a strangely intimate image. Nobody has ever done the same with photos of Will, he's sure. But he doesn't want to sit here feeling sorry for himself, especially not when all of these photos are clear evidence that Lucas is still heartbroken. He sits with them for a few minutes, realizes he's gotten distracted and puts them back in a neat stack on the desk, then finally goes to catch up with Mrs. Sinclair.

Lucas crashes in through the front door at 3:10 pm. "WILL!" He shouts. At first, Will thinks he's just being overenthusiastic about his return, but then Lucas continues: "DUSTIN JUST SAW TEWS RUNNING DOWN THE BLOCK TOWARD THE PLAYGROUND. WE GOTTA GO." All the while, he runs inside, grabs Will's arm, and rushes him toward the door.  
  
"Just what is worth making all this racket for!" Mrs. Sinclair raises her voice sternly from the kitchen. She's on her way out into the living room when Lucas smiles at her sheepishly.   
  
"Sorry," he whispers, then shuts the door.   
  
Will and Lucas immediately take off running down the driveway. Lucas hops on his bike, which is a newish adult-sized one he got at the beginning of freshman year.  
  
"Take Erica's!" Lucas says, before riding off. Will stands still in shock for a moment, doing a double take. Erica's bike is way too small.   
  
"C'mon!" Lucas shouts. He's already a speck in the distance.  
  
Will groans and hops on Erica's tiny bike, his knees knocking against the handles. He nearly tips over with his weight. "Oh my God."  
  
When he makes it to the playground, he's panting and out of breath, Lucas is already there, and Mike and Dustin are walking around together in the adjacent baseball field. Dustin is making embarrassing noises to attract Tews, but Will can't see the cat anywhere.   
  
"Lucas." Will climbs out of Erica's bike with great difficulty and walks over to Lucas, crossing his arms. "Why didn't we just take your car?"  
  
Lucas stares at Will, confused, and then his jaw drops.  
  
"Holy shit, we could have taken my car."  
  
"If you ever accuse _me_ of being spacey again, I'll riot," Will says.  
  
Mike must hear Will, because he turns around, evidently no longer interested in finding Tews. He takes off at full sprint towards Will and tackle-hugs him. Mike's height sends Will off-balance, tripping and falling over into the playground mulch. Will laughs joyously, pushing Mike off of him.  
  
"Hey, Will!" Dustin shouts from the baseball field. "Sorry, but you'll still be here in like an hour and I'm not confident that Tews will!"   
  
"Don't be so sure!" Will shouts back.  
  
He turns around and punches Mike in the shoulder.  
  
"Ow!" Mike gasps. "What was that for?"  
  
"You knocked me to the ground!"  
  
"I'm glad to see you!"  
  
"You saw me two months ago!"  
  
"Yeah, well…"  
  
"Oh my god," Lucas interrupts. "Get a room. We have to find this fucking cat."  
  
Mike stands up. He puts a hand out to help up Will, who accepts. While they're brushing the dust off their clothing, Dustin yelps and starts running towards the trees nearby.   
  
"I think he saw Tews," Mike says.  
  
Mike, Will, and Lucas run after him, following Dustin's lead as he weaves between trees and over raised roots.

"I—" Pant. "Hate— " Pant. "Cats—" Pant. Pant. Pant. Lucas is slumped over, hands on his knees. He checks his pulse with two fingers pressed to the side of his neck. It’s performative.  
  
"Why is he so fucking fast?" Mike gasps for breath. "What is he running from?"  
  
"His demons," Will jokes. They're all too exhausted to laugh.  
  
"Fuck! Damnit!" Dustin kicks a rock into a tree stump. It bounces off and hits Mike in the shin.  
  
"OW!"  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"Maybe you should just—" Pant. "Let Tews go—" Pant. "I mean, clearly he doesn't want to go home." Lucas sits down on a log. Mike joins him.  
  
"But my mom—" Dustin starts.  
  
"I mean," Lucas continues. "He wouldn't have left if he didn't need to. He probably had a good reason."  
  
Mike hums a sound of glum agreement. "Maybe it's for the best. I mean, is it even fair to ask him to come back? We don't know what he wants. Maybe if you'd communicated more—"   
  
"Dustin probably communicated enough!" Lucas grumbles. "If anything, all he did was communicate."  
  
"But you can't force him to come back!"  
  
Dustin and Will share a perturbed look. This is getting into… weird territory.  
  
"Uh," Dustin says. "Yes. We can."  
  
"He's a cat," Will adds.  
  
Then it's Mike and Lucas's turn to share a look, embarrassed, having just snapped out of a trance.  
  
"Look!" Dustin says. Everyone's heads snap up. "That guy over there caught Tews!" He points through the trees back to the playground.  
  
A couple is walking together past the swings, occasionally bumping shoulders. The taller, short-haired figure has Tews cuddled in his arms like a baby.  
  
"Please, no more running," Lucas begs. "We _walk._ Like normal people."

As they approach the couple, the details on one of the figures becomes familiar. Robin. She’s been away at college for the past few years, so Will hadn’t expected to see her.   
  
“That’s not a guy,” Mike observes. The stranger walking with Robin and cradling Tews appears more effeminate up close, though her straight-legged pants and plain T-shirt don’t reveal much in the way of a physical form.  
  
“Robin!” Dustin shouts happily.  
  
“Twerp!” Robin responds, just as brightly. When they reach each other, Robin pulls him into a hug like he’s her little brother, then musses up his hair. He laughs and pushes her off. Lucas, Mike, and Will greet her with enthusiasm.   
  
When they’ve said their Hellos, Robin looks between them and the stranger, who smiles awkwardly.  
  
“This is my friend, Lynn,” Robin says. “Lynn—Dustin, Lucas, Mike, and Will.”  
  
Lynn has close-cropped, dark brown hair and dark brown eyes that bring a strange cuteness to her angular face. Her square glasses give her an intellectual look. When she speaks, her voice betrays a slight accent from somewhere else in the US that Will can’t quite place.  
  
“We go to Smith together,” Lynn says. “I’ve heard a lot about you guys!”   
  
Tews is stretched out in her arms, totally content with the way she’s scratching his chin.   
  
“Really?” Dustin asks.  
  
“Yeah, you’re into science stuff, right? I’m a Physics major.”  
  
“She’s pissed because they just added a Computer Science major this year and she can’t switch over,” Robin says.   
  
Lynn hip-checks Robin. Will thinks the action is almost… flirtatious? “Yeah, well,” Lynn says. “I wasn’t planning to introduce myself to them by complaining.”  
  
“ _That_ would be a new approach. Too bad you didn’t think of it before you met my parents.” Robin snarks, but it seems good-natured.  
  
“Well they haven’t kicked me out yet, have they?” Lynn leans towards Robin (as if for a kiss, Will thinks to himself), but Robin ducks her head and extracts Tews from Lynn’s doting arms. She hands him to Dustin.  
  
“I believe this is yours?”  
  
Will can’t stop himself from interrupting the reunion of boy and feline. He blurts out—“She’s staying at _your_ house?”   
  
A shyness suddenly creeps up in both Robin and Lynn, but Lucas says, “Yeah, Will, just like how you’re staying with me?”  
  
“She said they’re friends,” Dustin says.   
  
Will furrows his brow. “I— I know. I meant… Nevermind.”  
  
Is he crazy? The tension between the two young women is literally palpable. And he’s always felt a kinship with Robin, like she was someone worth looking up to though the reason why was unclear. "How'd you catch him?" Mike asks Lynn. "We've been chasing him for like twenty minutes."  
  
"Cats just like me," Lynn shrugs. This time, she winks at Robin, who shoves her in the arm and murmurs something like "shut _up._ "  
  
The affectionate glance between the two young women confirms Will's suspicions. Why should he expect his friends to understand?  
  
Tews looks much less happy to be in Dustin's arms, wriggling and writhing to free himself, but Dustin hangs on for dear life.  
  
"Well, it was cool to meet you, Lynn, but Tews here is about to throw a hissyfit so I should really take him home." Then Dustin looks at Robin. "Let's hang out soon!"  
  
Robin: "Sure thing. I bet you and Steve miss having three brain cells instead of one and a half."  
  
Dustin: "I love how you just implied you only have one and a half braincells yourself."  
  
Robin: "They have some extras on rent at Smith's library, so I usually just use those around finals."  
  
Tews: "Meow."  
  
Lucas: "C'mon, Will, let's head back."  
  
Will: "I'm _not_ riding Erica's bike again."  
  
Mike: "I drove Dustin here. I can take you to Lucas's if you don't mind me dropping him off first."  
  
Dustin is already trying to climb into Mike's back seat with Tews crying angrily in his arms. Will nods. He stuffs Erica's tiny bike into the trunk and takes the front seat. Lucas rides off alone.  
  
When Mike closes the car door behind him, he turns and just looks at Will for a moment. "What?" Will asks, perplexed.  
  
"You look older."  
  
"It's only been two months."  
  
"And somehow you got older. It’s a good thing. You look good."  
  
"Well," Will says, mouth suddenly dry. "You look the same." He wants to slap himself.  
  
Dustin groans from the back seat. "Yeah, yeah, we're all adorable," he grumbles. "Can we please move before Tews pisses on me out of spite."  
  
Mike starts the car and pulls out of his shoddy parallel parking job between two trucks.  
  
"That girl Robin was with was cute," Mike says, distracted.  
  
"Yeah," Dustin agrees. "Not super into pixie cuts though."  
  
Will doesn't say anything.  
  
When they get to the Henderson house, Dustin jumps out of the car, and Will and Mike have to help hold the front door open while Dustin holds Tews' paws down like a straitjacket to avoid being scratched to death.  
When Will finds himself alone in the car with Mike again, the tension from his best friend's earlier comment has faded. Mike turns on the radio and they jam out on the way to Lucas's house. Will wonders if Mike has ever listened to The Clash and thought of Will while he was away. Probably not. Not the way Will turns on Naked Eyes to remind him of Mike whenever he's gone a few weeks without a phone call. Joyce had noticed. She always asked about it when she heard the opening riffs of _Promises, Promises_ coming from Will’s room. He doesn't play the song anymore.  
  
"Is Nancy seeing anyone new?" Will asks in the midst of their idle chatter. She and Jonathan had ended their relationship within the past month, seemingly on mutual terms.  
  
"Not yet," Mike answers. “That would be weird, right? What about Jonathan?"  
  
Will shakes his head. Obviously not.  
  
"Good," Mike says. "She's been really beaten up about it. I mean, not that they should get back together. They had their reasons. But she just isn't there yet."  
  
"Jonathan is the same. But Nancy was his first—his only real relationship, so I think he might end up needing more time than she does."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Will steels his resolve. "What about you?"  
  
" _What_ about me?"  
  
"After El. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."  
  
Mike stays quiet for a long time.  
  
"I'm fine," he says, turning the car wheel. "But you're right. I don't want to talk about it."  
  
This disappoints Will immensely. He accepts Mike's boundary regardless. "Okay."  
  
There's an awkward silence between them that's grown too familiar in recent times. Even the music doesn't drown it out.  
  
Mike finally takes mercy on Will and breaks it. "Do you think Robin and that Lynn girl are together?"  
  
Will holds his breath.  
  
"Like, dating." Mike clarifies. "Do you think they're dating?"  
  
"You picked up on that?" Will asks, incredulous.  
  
"It was impossible not to. They were practically making out in front of us. Being disgustingly adorable and what not." He turns the wheel, taking a smooth turn around a road bend that he must know like the back of his hand.  
"Yeah," Will says, still feeling like this is all some kind of dream.  
  
"I thought she and Steve were a thing, but clearly not," Mike says. "I shouldn't have assumed." Shouldn't have assumed that Robin was dating Steve or that she was straight?  
  
"A lot of people probably assumed.”  
  
“Still. It’s not an excuse.”  
  
Will shrugs and looks out of the car window at the houses flying by. There are two- and three-story homes everywhere, which seem even bigger now that Will has grown accustomed to the Byers’ apartment, which only has two bedrooms and one bath in addition to a hybridized kitchen-living room situation. He doesn’t actually mind the close quarters except when it comes to privacy (lack thereof). But there’s always that tiny pang of jealousy when he sees a house with a real front yard or even a pool.  
  
When they pull up to Lucas’s, Mike taps his hands against the steering wheel and looks at Will expectantly. He jerks his head back to motion to the Wheeler house which is close by.   
  
“Why don’t you come over?” He asks.  
  
Will sighs and smiles. “It’d be rude to skip on over to your house when I promised my hosts I’d be at their place by five.”  
  
Mike rolls his eyes. “That’s so early.”  
  
As much as it pains him to say so, “I made a commitment, and I’m sticking to it.” Will starts to open the car door.  
  
“What about after dinner?” Mike presses. “I can pick you up.”  
  
“Sure.” Will nods. “But I can just walk over.”  
  
“Orrrrrrr, I can pick you up.”  
  
“Suit yourself.” He stops himself from adding, _Romeo._

Lucas and Erica engage in a shouting match across the table while they set down dishes. Will occupies himself silently by pretending to sort the spoons, forks, and knives in the correct order by each plate. He doesn’t actually know what the order is, which is unfortunate considering that he works in a restaurant.   
  
“You can tell your little BOYFRIEND that if he goes in my room again, I’m gonna knock his stupid HEAD IN," Lucas says.  
  
“We needed something to be the Githyanki!”  
  
“It’s ‘gith-YAN-ki’ not ‘GIT-yayn-ki’! AND SKELETOR IS NOT A GITHYANKI.”  
  
“It’s a TOY!”  
  
“IT WAS IN MINT CONDITION, ERICA!” Lucas screeches. “MINT. CONDITION.” Will thinks he might throw a plate. Luckily, he reaches for something less breakable—a stack of cloth napkins—and tosses them at her. At that exact moment, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair walk in the front door.  
  
“Just _what_ is going on here?” Mrs. Sinclair bellows, dropping grocery bags on the floor. She glares at Lucas and Erica, who immediately drop to the floor and begin picking up napkins. Mr. Sinclair, on the other hand, makes eye contact with Will and shakes his head wearily, like _Do you see what I have to put up with?_ Will laughs.   
  
Lucas points an accusatory finger at his sister. “Erica’s boyfriend went in my room!”   
  
“Erica’s _WHAT?”_  
  
“He’s just my friend!” Erica backpedals.   
  
Mr. Sinclair, unaffected, walks over calmly and places a hand on Will’s shoulder. “How’ve you been, son?”  
  
“Fine, thanks, sir.”  
  
Mrs. Sinclair just about leaps over the dining table at Lucas. "Don't put the napkins back on the table! Who raised you?!"  
  
“You did!"  
  
“How’s that school been treating you?” Mr. Sinclair lifts the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter.  
  
“LUCAS CHARLES SINCLAIR, WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT BACK TALK?”  
  
“It’s okay. I have an art teacher who likes me, but that’s about it,” Will replies.   
  
“YOU ASKED ME A QUESTION, MOM. WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO SAY?”  
  
“ERICA, I _SEE_ YOU WALKING UP THE STAIRS. YOU COME BACK AND SIT YOUR LITTLE BEHIND DOWN ON THIS CHAIR. I’M NOT FINISHED.”  
  
“Hm. I didn’t like my high school either. But at this point, what’s one more year?”  
  
“Yeah. I’m just gonna push through it.”  
  
“WHAT’S THIS ABOUT A BOYFRIEND?”  
  
“HE’S JUST. MY. FRIEND.”

Will walks out to the driveway in a light hoodie, perfect for the summer breeze. It’s dusk. The smell of freshly mowed grass wafts through the air, and a smokey scent signals that the neighbors are barbecuing next door. Mike is already sitting in his car at the end of the drive, waving at Will to come over. Will points to himself and mouths the words— _Who, me?_ Mike gives him a flat glance and shakes his head. Will opens the car door.  
  
“You’re a dork,” Mike greets.  
  
“Don’t worry, you’re still top dork. You didn’t need to drive me.”  
  
“I wanted to.”  
  
“Mike, you’re single-handedly killing the planet.”  
  
“Worth it.”  
  
“That’s so…” Will doesn’t know what word to settle on. It’s somewhere on the tip of his tongue. “Stupid.”  
  
Inside the blanket fort in Mike’s basement, the two play Egyptian Rat Screw, talk about current events at Hawkins High, and drink stolen red wine from ceramic mugs. Mike is convinced that his mom’s wine habit means she won’t notice when half a bottle goes missing. Will stops himself from commenting that that’s sad; Mike already knows. All Will’s ever had before was a half-empty Radler offered to him by Nancy the last time they’d interacted (a Wheeler barbecue) and a mimosa at an NYU student photography gallery that he’d thought was just orange juice. He’d spat it out. Jonathan had laughed at him.  
  
When Will’s body gets warmer and more languid and his thoughts start to slow down, Mike is still going strong. What exploits have the Party done that Will doesn’t know about? He places a Two of Hearts on top of a Six of Diamonds, nearly jumps out of his skin when Mike reaches forward and slaps the deck. Will stares down, dumbfounded. “What’d you do that for?”  
  
“There’s a Two of Spades under the Six,” Mike explains, drawing the deck toward himself with a smug little smile. It’s kind of infuriating. Will wants to kiss it off him.   
  
He rubs a hand across his face. “Fuck. I forgot that was a rule. It’s been awhile.”  
  
“It’s okay. I’ll refresh you,” Mike says. “You can also slap on sequences of four numbers going up or down, on a card that matches the first one in the stack, or a marriage.”   
  
“What’s a marriage?”  
  
“A king and a queen. Either one can be on top.”  
  
“Got it.”  
  
They play another round. Mike’s reaction time finally starts to slow down like Will’s, making the game fair again. In his tipsy mood, Will barely notices himself humming Bowie’s _Heroes_ until Mike joins in. Soon they’re doing a mixture of humming out of pitch and singing the words in obnoxious voices as they place down cards and slap the deck. Sometimes, Will’s hand lands on top of Mike’s, and Mike pulls the cards away with increasing arrogance that he’s just doing for laughs. Other times, Mike’s hand lands on top of Will’s and grabs it like he can keep Will from taking the deck. And at one point both of their hands land on the deck simultaneously and Mike tries to slide his fingers under Will’s as if he won’t notice. He starts to take the deck.   
  
“Oh my god. Right in front of God and everybody,” Will accuses.   
  
“What?” Mike laughs. “It’s mine.”  
  
“It _is not_. You know we hit it at the same time.”  
  
“My hand was underneath yours.”  
  
“Bullshit!”  
  
“Seriously!”  
  
Will looks down at the deck and pushes Mike’s hand away. He lifts the top card, the King of Spades, off of another card, the King of Hearts. “ _Michael Wheeler,_ this isn’t even a marriage, and you were about to sacrifice my trust over it.”  
  
“Huh?” Mike grabs the Kings from Will. “I mean," he laughs. "Hypothetically it _could_ be a marriage if this was a progressive game.”  
  
Will rolls his eyes. “Ha. ha.”  
  
“Maybe that’s how gays are supposed to play this.”  
  
“Gays? Mike, you hit the cards too.”  
  
“It’s hard to tell the difference between a king and a queen when we’re moving so fast!”  
  
“If you’re suggesting that I should play a different version of ERS just ‘cause I like guys, then I’m gonna have to start playing gay Dungeons and Dragons too, you realize?” Will says.  
  
“To be fair, Troy would say all D&D is gay.”  
  
Will smirks. “I wish.”  
  
“Let’s start over.” Mike shuffles the deck and they begin anew.

Will’s favorite nights spent at Mike’s house are the ones where they stay up until 2 am, laying side by side in bed, getting philosophical. Though Will had intended to return to the Sinclairs’ house, tonight is becoming one of those wonderful nights.   
  
The fan, which had whirred for most of the summer, is off and shoved into a corner of the room, forgotten. For once, the room’s temperature is perfect the way it is. Mike’s long limbs splay out across the bed sheets, leaving Will just enough room to curl his legs up. His vision has adjusted well to the darkness, carving Mike’s familiar face out in shades of indigo and black. It’s pretty. The wind outside makes quiet white noise.  
  
“Lucas and Max—they were always gonna break up, you know,” Mike analyzes. It’s been a couple of hours, so the wine has mostly left his system, but Will can still smell the scent of sour grapes on his breath. He remembers that he'd left his toothbrush at Lucas's house. "Like the constant bickering. And Max is _mean_. Not to mention how unrealistic it is for anyone to stay with the person they started dating in, what? Eighth grade?"   
  
"You mean that?" Will asks. Has Mike ever been so critical about young romance before? Surely not when he was with El.  
  
"Yeah. Imagine only being with one person your whole life—what are the chances they're the _right one?"_  
  
"Do you believe in 'the One'?" Will flips his pillow to the cool side.  
  
This question seems to stump Mike. "I think I did. But now I'm wondering—maybe everyone on Earth, like statistically, is perfectly compatible with another 100 people of the other five billion. And the trouble is wading through a thousand people who are _almost_ right just to be able to find one of the hundred." Mike looks to him for confirmation. "Does that make sense?"  
  
Will hums. "Maybe." He watches Mike move a piece of black hair out of his blue eyes. "I don't think anybody is perfectly compatible though," Will says, finally. "I think there are people you build connections with over time, and yeah, it helps a lot if you're already physically attracted to them and you share stuff in common, but even with someone close to perfect, you're going to change and they're going to change and you're just going to have to decide whether it's worth it to keep learning and loving this new version of them."  
  
"You sound like you've had a lot of experience," Mike replies, though they both know Will's never had anything resembling a real relationship in his life.   
  
"I think it applies to friendships too," Will says.  
  
"...Am I still worth it?"  
  
Will pretends to think on it. Mike playfully jabs his shoulder. "Jerk."  
  
"Well I was _going_ to say you're worth it, but after that hit I'm reconsidering," Will says.   
  
"Thanks."  
  
"You're welcome. What about me—am I still worth it?"  
  
"Yes," Mike answers immediately. Will gives him a small smile. "Two things about your theory," Mike continues. "I like it because I think it sounds a lot more forgiving than mine, and that it's applicable to more than just romantic stuff. But also I hate it because there's no guarantee that someone is out there who I can make it work with." He delivers the sentence lightly, but Will can see there's some unwonted worry there. The breakup has done a number on him.  
  
"That's ridiculous. You're gonna make some girl out there very happy someday." There's a tug in Will's chest as he says it, but this is about Mike right now. Not about _them._  
  
"Thanks, Will."   
  
They're both quiet for a moment or two. Then Will says, "You know, your theory is also—nevermind."   
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Forget it."  
  
"No, tell me. I want to know."  
  
"Okay." Will contemplates what he was wanting to say, how he wants to say it. "Does the concept of having certain pre-destined soulmates mean that all 100 of those people you're compatible with are the same gender? Does it depend on your own preference? It seems too nice and neat. My theory involves more… ugh, I guess 'choice' isn't the right word."  
  
Something seems to click inside of Mike, because he sits up quickly, pondering.   
  
"Choice. That's another thing, Will. Do you—Did you—um."  
  
"What?"  
  
Mike huffs. Will knows the look—when Mike’s brain moves too fast for his mouth, he gets frustrated. It’s more than a little endearing. “How did you know?”  
  
“About…?”  
  
“About, you know.”  
  
“You’re asking me to open up a lot,” Will bites. “And you can’t even _say_ it?”  
  
Mike’s guilt is clear by the way he looks anywhere but at Will.  
  
“And I didn’t _choose_ it.” Will knows there’s bitterness in his tone, and he doesn’t care to hide it.  
  
“Well,” Mike sighs. “I just mean, um. Sorry.” He lays back down into the covers, grips the duvet, and seems to cocoon himself deeper into its protection. A dog barks outside and the neighbors turn on a light to see what’s going on. “It’s just that I… I think that I… could.”  
  
Will waits patiently for him to say more.  
  
“Do you not feel that? Like, I’m straight. I like girls. I want to date girls.”  
  
 _Don’t rub it in,_ Will thinks.  
  
“But I could _choose_ to… it sounds ridiculous.” Mike shys away.  
  
“Mike, why the fuck would I choose this? I got shit about it from Troy for all of elementary and middle school. My dad _left_.”  
  
Mike’s mouth moves without sound for a moment, like a Charlie Chaplin film. “I’m sorry.”  
  
A stab of regret for his astringency hits Will in the chest. He turns his body over to face Mike directly, not expecting Mike to already be staring back at him. “No, I’m sorry,” he whispers. “What were you trying to say?”  
  
“I just—I want you to know I understand it?” Mike taps his fingers against the bed compulsively. “You couldn’t choose, but I think maybe I could… choose… but then I wouldn’t have girls, you know? Maybe you don’t know." Mike rubs his eyes. "But it’s easier to stay how I am. Obviously. That part you know. Sorry. I’m not explaining myself well.”  
  
Will is kind of shocked. He wants to say, _Well, don't you think if you could choose to be gay, that you already are?_ But he doesn't want to scare Mike away. Not when this is the most vulnerable he's seen him in years.  
  
"It's okay," Will assures. "I think I get it."  
  
When Mike finally lifts his gaze, their eyes lock together as if magnetized. So much passes between them wordlessly, and Will doesn't think he could put words to it if he tried. There's a foot of space between them on the bed, but that space is both infinite and infinitesimal at once. It's devastating. Mike blinks a few times, and Will finally sees that he’s been holding in tears. One rolls off of his eyelashes and gravity causes it to fall horizontally down his cheek.   
  
When Will tries to speak again, the sound barely leaves his mouth. “What’re you crying for?” He asks, softly. His hand twitches beside his pillow—an impulse to reach out and wipe the tear off of Mike’s face; he quells the thought.   
  
Then, Mike does something that he hasn’t done since… since… that day, when Will was drenched in sweat and the Byers’ walls were covered in crude illustrations of the Upside Down. Mike’s hand, white in the moonlight, reaches for Will’s. There’s no grip; he just lets his fingers rest on Will’s palm. Will can hardly breathe.  
  
“I don’t want you to feel alone,” Mike replies, just as quietly. “Just because I…” He shakes his head.  
  
“I _don’t_ feel alone. Not right now.”   
  
Mike’s willingness to hold his hand ignites Will’s dormant brave streak. As another tear rolls down his friend’s cheek, Will lifts his hand and uses his thumb to gingerly wipe it away. Is this just his imagination, or does Mike lean into the touch? His cheek is hot against Will’s palm.   
  
Mike’s eyes flutter closed. His chest rises and falls in a slow, consistent rhythm. Will wonders how long all of that has been bottled up inside of his best friend—is it a recent revelation or has he known for some time? Is Mike truly on the verge of discovering something life-changing about himself, or is this some cruel trick of the universe?   
  
Will’s thumb, as if on its own, rubs another gentle circle across Mike’s cheek. Mike places his hand on top of Will’s—Will’s stomach leaps, reminiscent of the wine-induced thrill he’d gotten while they were playing cards—and Mike does the unimaginable: pulls Will’s hand down to his lips, pressing them softly to the flesh beneath his thumb. _Mount of Venus,_ Will’s clouded mind supplies. That’s what it’s called, according to a second-hand palmistry book that’s sitting on his desk at home. The sensation of Mike’s lips against his skin tickles, but he feels no urge to laugh.  
  
“Mike?” Will whispers, not knowing what he intends to say.  
  
Mike lets go. He sits up, turns the bedside lamp on, and doesn’t look back at Will. “I have to—um.” He fidgets with the hem of his pajama top, an oversized Ghostbusters shirt. “Gotta go check on something. I’ll be right b-back.” He stands up and, still refusing to turn around, leaves the room. The door closes with a deafening _thud._ Mike is a terrible liar, but Will is too stunned to follow him. Had _any_ of that just happened?  
  
Mike is gone for what must be an hour. Will falls asleep before he comes back.

“Hey, is there something wrong?” Lucas asks. They’re walking the old train tracks in the woods. Dustin, Steve, and Robin walk ahead of them, out of earshot and acting like total idiots.  
  
Will’s head jolts up. “No, no, I’m—”  
  
“Lying,” Lucas finishes for him. “Friends don’t lie.”  
  
As Will trudges, he splits waves of dirt with his shoes. Just like every year since 1985, he’ll miss seeing the leaves fall in Hawkins. For some reason, this thought strikes a chord of deep sadness within him. A sigh. “Mike is being weird.”  
  
“Mike is AWOL,” Lucas corrects. “He’s not even around enough for us to see him being weird.” Will frowns. Lucas lowers his voice. “Did something happen when you slept over?”  
  
They continue to walk, grass crunching beneath their shoes. Eventually, Will nods.  
  
“I woke up, and when I went downstairs, Mr. Wheeler said he’d left to go work on a class project.”  
  
“That’s bullshit.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“But _why_ did he leave?”  
  
Will bites the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting out that _he doesn’t know._ He’s never been so confused in his life, and that life has been filled past the brim with confusing shit. After their heart-to-heart, which had led to those unnervingly intimate displays of affection, Mike had gone radio silent. He hasn’t even reached out to Will to explain that it had all just been a misunderstanding; a joke that went too far. At the same time, Will knows exactly why Mike’s dropped all contact. But would Lucas understand?  
  
“I must’ve said something that bothered him,” Will says. It’s a half truth.  
  
“Do you know what it was?”  
  
Will huffs. “Honestly, Lucas, I don’t. There are many reasons I’m glad to be staying at your house, but I wasn’t expecting this to be one of them.”  
  
Lucas kicks a stone forward a couple of feet. “Sorry about all of this. You don’t deserve it.”  
  
“You and Dustin don’t deserve it. You’re not even part of whatever upset him.” When they reach the stone, Will kicks it again.  
  
“If he has a problem with you, and he’s not man enough to sit down and discuss it, then it’s not worth worrying over. It’s _his_ problem, not yours,” Lucas offers.  
  
That would probably be comforting if Will hadn’t been in love with Mike for most of his life. “I guess _you’ve_ grown recently.”  
  
“How so?”  
  
“You used to literally fight Mike and Dustin when you argued. Like physically.”  
  
“They always started it.”  
  
“Mm-hm,” Will hums. Lucas smiles and rolls his eyes. He kicks the stone again.  
  
“How are your applications coming along?” Will changes the subject.  
  
“Hah. Is that a real question?” Lucas laughs. “I’ve done nothing. Not one thing.”  
  
“Oh thank God,” Will says. “Me too. I thought I was the only one who hadn’t started.”  
  
“There’s so much time left. Usually I don’t procrastinate, but I’m not even sure if I’m applying to the right places,” Lucas admits. “When I started putting together the list, I thought I was gonna overlap with Max as much as possible. And you saw how that shit turned out.”  
  
Will nods sympathetically.   
  
“They should be back soon, but I haven’t heard anything from her this whole time. Don’t even know what day they’re supposed to be back on.”  
  
“I haven’t heard from El,” Will says. It’s not the same.  
  
“Sorry,” Lucas says. “I keep doing this.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Talking about Max. It sounds like I’m a crazy ex-boyfriend. Maybe I am, but that doesn’t mean everyone else has to put up with me.”  
  
“It’s completely understandable.” Not that Will knows what a breakup is like. If it’s anything similar to the feeling of Mike ghosting him, then it’s terrible. “You can talk to me if you want to. Even as a crazy ex-boyfriend.”  
  
“I might have to take you up on that,” Lucas smiles. “But maybe later. If I cried right now, Dustin would never let me live it down.”  
  
“Suit yourself.”  
  
Steve has just said something intolerably stupid because Robin and Dustin both push him off the tracks, sending him careening into a tree nearby. They're all laughing. "That was the worst joke I've heard all year, Harrington," Robin says.   
  
She seems so happy. Will wonders if her parents really believe Lynn is just a friend.

Melvald’s. Snow. Dead of night, silent but for ugly orange sneakers crunching in the snow. Cigarette smoke. Liquor. Cold. Cold. Cold. He likes it cold.  
  
Angry, stupid boys. Troy reels back and throws the first punch, right at Will’s gut.   
  
Slurring, drunken boys. This time, no car comes on a rescue mission.  
  
Crazy, stupid boys. Mike lands one against Will’s jaw.  
  
Troy punches out wildly, bruising Will on his upper-arms and forearms. Mike grabs both of Will’s arms and screams incoherently at him. The masculine shadow hitting Will looks nothing like Troy _or_ Mike, but somehow he is both in the same moment.  
  
The shadow, who has now—inexplicably—become the Mind Flayer, leans in.

Will wakes up to Lucas shaking him by the shoulders. “Wh—what—”  
  
“Jesus Christ, Will, you scared me.”  
  
He’s only just gotten used to waking up on the Sinclairs’ sofa bed without feeling lost and confused. Right now, he is both. “You kept shivering. I thought you were having a fit or something. And you weren’t answering to me calling your name.”  
  
“Sorry.” Will sits up. “I guess I was in pretty deep.”  
  
“Nightmare?”  
  
“Yeah.” He’s sick to his stomach with anxiety from the dream. He grips the blanket, trying to ground himself, convince himself that he’s safe, that he’s with Lucas and not outside of Melvald’s getting pummeled. “I—” He’s still shaking uncontrollably, gasping for air. Tears burn the sides of his face.  
  
“What’s up? What can I do?” Lucas’s eyes widen with panic, but his voice is smooth and quiet. Will can’t respond; he can’t get enough oxygen. Something clicks in Lucas’s mind.  
  
“You’re hyperventilating. Shit, uh. I'll be right back." Lucas runs from the living room to the kitchen and begins shuffling through the contents of the cabinets. Will's mouth twists from the irony. _I'll be right b-back._ But after banging around for a minute or two, Lucas returns with a paper bag. He opens it and pushes the corners out so that it’s the proper shape, then hands it to Will. "Here." He places his palm gently against Will's upper back and helps him move the bag to his mouth. Will’s hands are still shaking, so it’s hard to maneuver it.   
  
“Try to breathe slower,” Lucas suggests. Will knows the point of a paper bag isn’t to _keep hyperventilating_ into the bag, but his body doesn’t want to be controlled. It’s eerily similar to—He can’t breathe. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. It’s cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. Is he dying? He’s dying. Lucas rubs his back, looking around frantically. “Should I get my mom?” he asks. Will shakes his head no. It’s like there’s a fault line somewhere inside him that’s releasing centuries of tension at once. Tears stream down his face, turning the bag darker wherever they fall. “Maybe you should lay down. Can you lay down?” Lucas asks. Will nods.  
  
Lucas uses the hand that’s already on Will’s back to tip him back onto the sofa, and brings his other hand to the back of Will’s head. He kneels beside the couch. “Breathe in,” he says. Will inhales. “Breath out.” Will exhales. The time between breaths is excruciating. They continue the pattern together—once, twice, three times, four. By the time Will’s breathing has finally slowed, they must have been going for ten minutes. The motions had become like a meditation, the sound of Lucas’s voice a mantra. Will opens his waterlogged eyes and peers down at the arm by his side, where Lucas is clutching him double-handed. Will swallows, feeling like he’s been drowned.  
  
“How did you know what to do?” He asks.  
  
Lucas stares at the floor. His voice comes out in a rasp: “My dad was in Vietnam. Mom takes care of him sometimes.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“It doesn’t happen a lot, or anything. And usually I don’t have to do this. It should be common sense, I guess, but I almost forgot what to do.”  
  
Will doesn’t think Lucas is going to say more. He shuts his eyes and leans back into the pillow, exhausted. The sun is just starting to rise outside the living room window. Then Lucas speaks again, sounding almost reluctant.  
  
“And me. My mom helps my dad and me.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Like I said. It doesn’t happen a lot.” Lucas sits back on his heels and takes the paper bag from Will’s hands. “But sometimes it does. Usually when you think you’re through with it forever. It comes back.” Lucas shakes his head.  
  
“Does your mom know?”  
  
“No.” Lucas shifts from his kneeling position to sit more comfortably, legs crossed on the floor. “She thinks it’s academic. Because she used to go into fits back when she was in school. It was a… worse time.” Lucas settles.  
  
Will squints at him.   
  
Lucas recognizes Will’s incredulity. “I mean, yeah, we have Reagan,” he concedes. “Worse, different, whatever.”  
  
When Will doesn’t say anything, Lucas continues: “Nobody in the Party knows I get them, other than Max. I had an attack on one of our dates. It was humiliating.” He closes his eyes, remembering. “She was nice about it though. Does this happen to you much?”  
  
“The nightmares happen a lot,” Will admits. “Not the panic attacks. When they do, I usually just wait them out. I didn’t know there was, like, a technique for it.”  
  
Lucas shrugs. “It’s just good to try to breathe slow and keep your mind off of things. Do you want to try to go back to sleep? I can stay here with you.”  
  
Will considers for a moment, but he knows he doesn’t want to sleep again. Not with that monster waiting on the other end. He shakes his head no. “I can’t. But I do want you to stay, if that’s okay.”  
  
“Sure, man,” Lucas says. “I can grab books from my room if you want? They’re usually a good distraction.” Will nods, the most grateful he’s been in weeks.  
  
Lucas leaves and returns a moment later with two: “Do you want _A Brief History of Time_ or this Batman comic?” he asks.  
  
Will reaches for _Batman: The Killing Joke_ and gazes at the cover art. Over the years, his eyes have gotten better at dissecting images, dividing light and dark colors into highlights and shadows. He studies the light refraction inside of the camera lens on the cover. These details have slowly migrated into his own art, yet he still feels inadequate compared with the comic art masters. “Thanks, Lucas,” he says.   
  
Lucas settles in next to him on the sofa, cracking open the Stephen Hawking book to a page somewhere in the middle. He must have started it already. Will leans his back against the plush of the couch, then is surprised when his shoulder bumps Lucas’s and Lucas doesn’t pull away. They sit together reading for some time, long enough for the sun to rise properly. When Will finishes the comic, he notices that Lucas has dozed off, fully drooling into Stephen Hawking’s life work. Will smiles.  
  
There’s the sound of heels click-clacking down the wood-floor hallway, and then Mrs. Sinclair appears. She looks at Will inquisitively, and he just shrugs, smiles, and gently elbows Lucas to wake him up. “Good to see you up before 10 for once, Lukey,” she says. _Lukey_. Will casts Lucas a smug grin and is met with a punch to the shoulder.   
  
“I’m gonna _pukey,_ ” Lucas mouths. They laugh.  
  
“How about, since you’re up so early, you and Will come help me make breakfast for your sister and daddy,” she says.   
  
Lucas groans, but he and Will are already on their way to the kitchen. “Will’s mom doesn’t make her guests do child labor,” he says.  
  
“Well, sweetpea, I’m not Joyce Byers. Now start frying up some eggs.”

“How much farther?” Will asks. The camouflage bandana is tied over his eyes, and Lucas is leading him through the woods.   
  
“Like a minute, dude. Jesus, be patient.”   
  
With two days left in his trip to Hawkins, Will had been pulled away from a fine lunch of Easy Cheese and crackers to walk blindfolded through a town that will forever both comfort and scare him. Lucas and Dustin have promised him a surprise, though, so walk blindfolded he does.   
  
The two stop suddenly, and Will imagines that they’ve reached a clearing. He hears Dustin trudging through dry grass and whispering loudly. “Mike,” he says. “They’re coming! Hide!” More rustling.  
  
Will freezes. Mike’s here?  
  
He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react to his best friend, who’d ghosted him for the better part of a week, suddenly showing up again. Is Mike the surprise? Because if so, he’s not sure he wants it.   
  
“Gentlemen,” Lucas puts on his best announcer voice. “Can I get a drumroll, please?”  
  
Dustin and Mike start drumming on tree trunks with small fallen branches. Anticipation builds in Will’s chest. Lucas unties the bandana around Will’s face and shouts, “Voila!”   
  
Before Will’s very eyes stands a handsome, if a little lopsided, wooden shack in exactly the same clearing where Castle Byers had once stood. He gasps and chokes on a laugh. Tears of joy run freely down his cheeks. “This—” he starts to say, but the sound comes out watery and garbled. He laughs wetly, covers his mouth and tries to collect himself. Hadn’t he cried himself dry just this morning?  
  
He grins at Lucas and Dustin, but can’t quite look Mike in the face. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m speechless. This is incredible,” he says. Dustin walks over and slings an arm around his shoulder.   
  
“We wanted to surprise you somehow, and Jonathan suggested it,” he explains.   
  
“We were supposed to have it done before you got to Hawkins, but _somebody_ lost the keys to the toolbox.” Lucas points a glare at Dustin.  
  
“And _then_ I found them with two days to spare!” Dustin glares back. “And it’ll still be here next time you visit.”  
  
Will’s still staring at the Castle, open-mouthed. “How did—?”   
  
“My dad had a construction manual.” Mike speaks up for the first time since Will’s arrival. “Lots of trial and error.”   
  
Their eyes meet just long enough for Will to say a shy “Thank you” again, but then each is back to averting his gaze as if the other is naked. And maybe, Will thinks, they are.   
  
Dustin ushers Will into the shack. It’s bigger than the original, probably because Will is pushing 5’8. There’s not standing room, per se, but it’s large enough to fit Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Mike comfortably as long as they’re all sitting down. With a mix of branches, wood planks, cement blocks, and real nails, this Castle appears much sturdier than the old one. There’s something beautiful about its permanence. Will is hit with another wave of emotion, and his mouth twists with the effort of holding back more tears. He’s been on edge all week. The reason why is finally sitting right beside him again.  
  
Dustin and Lucas banter and argue and banter-argue while showing Will the various doodads from childhood that they’d saved and stored in the Castle—action figures, old comic books, photos. It’s like Will’s original collection, but this time it’s a collaborative work put together by his best friends in the entire world. He believes that if thirteen year-old Will had known this was coming, he would not have spent every day at his then-new school wondering when and how the end would come; he would have had more faith.   
  
As they transition into discussing Steve’s most recent (and embarrassing) dating exploits, Erica’s D&D group, and Tews’s wellbeing, Mike is uncharacteristically quiet. There’s electricity coursing through Will’s arm where it waits inches from Mike’s, untouched. At the same time, he feels sick to his stomach with shame and humiliation. But why? What had he done that Mike had not initiated? He would never have asked Mike to kiss his hand like that, even in his weakest moments. Yet he is guilty for conjuring up that scene daily—reliving it again, and again, and again, and again. And it feels so incredibly _good_ to re-live something that isn’t traumatic. So good.   
  
But Mike doesn’t smile. Mike doesn’t contribute or laugh or bump his arm against Will’s, so maybe this is bad after all. For the better part of a week, Will has allowed himself to live in a fantasy version of them where the bad ending didn’t happen. And that’s not real. Mike must regret what he’s done. Will should not have gotten his hopes up.  
  
Before the sun has even begun to set, Mike says “Bye” to all of them, refusing to make eye contact with Will. Dustin deals out cards for a game of Bullshit, which is apparently the only time when Friends Do Lie. Lucas is terrible at it. Dustin excels. Will is always hit or miss.   
  
When the sun sets, Dustin says “Bye” and “Oh God I said I’d be home an hour ago,” and gives Will a bear hug, which he hasn’t experienced in a long fucking time. He thinks about the way that he and Lucas had cuddled up together to read earlier in the day and wonders if there’s something in the water making the boys of Hawkins touchy like little children. Not that he’s complaining.   
  
And then there were two.  
  
Lucas is on a tangent about Erica and her little boyfriend with whom she’s going to break up soon because Clara Carpenter said that he told Danny Jenkins that Audrey Smith and Jenny Baxter were planning to get Gina Hernandez to ask him to the Snow Ball and that he was thinking of saying yes and isn’t that ridiculous because he’s dating Erica and everyone knows you don’t go to dances with other girls when you have a girlfriend and it doesn’t matter if he hasn’t said yes yet, it’s more that he didn’t immediately say no. Will smiles sympathetically.   
  
“If you’re confused hearing me say that _now,_ ” Lucas says, “Imagine your little sister yelling all this at you with an Alcas butter knife in her tiny, unpredictable hand.”  
  
“Terrible,” Will agrees.   
  
"I don't miss that age," Lucas says. “I know Max and I were a nightmare to be around.”  
  
“You guys weren’t too bad.” Not nearly as much as Mike and El. “We all probably could’ve done without the constant off-and-on-againness though.”  
  
Lucas snorts. “Yeah. Me too.” His expression changes, becoming pensive and somber. “It wasn’t her fault, you know.”  
  
Will is quiet.  
  
Lucas takes a deep breath, steadying himself, and continues. “As much as she likes to pretend it’s not true, Max has real insecurities.” He shakes his head. “It sucked— always breaking up and getting back together. I should be happy that that’s all over, but I _can’t._ I know she’s insecure about being in a relationship because she’s terrified that whatever guy she dates is gonna try to control her like her piece of shit step-dad controls her mom. It’s, like, a defensive thing with her.” He pauses, considering his words. “Not that I never said or did anything wrong to provoke it, because I’ve said some _dumb_ shit in my day, but I just know that if she wasn’t watching her mom be abused, we would’ve had something kind of normal. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accept it—what we could’ve had. It’s too fucked.”  
  
Will studies Lucas, who might appear collected, if a little irritated, to anyone else, but Will can see hurt beneath the surface of his deep brown eyes—can see it in the way Lucas restlessly rubs his hands together.   
  
Will wraps an arm around Lucas’s shoulder and pulls him into a hug. He’s pleasantly surprised when Lucas doesn’t pull away after the conventionally-accepted amount of time for teen guy friends to embrace. “I know,” Will says. The woods around them are quiet. “You did everything you could. She needed someone to be patient with her. You understood her. I think she knows that,” he reassures. “None of that is your fault.”  
  
“I failed.” Lucas’s voice cracks, just a hint. “I lost one of my best friends, and I don’t even know why.”  
  
“It’s not your fault, Lucas.”  
  
Lucas pulls away from Will’s arms, but leans his head on Will’s shoulder. They sit with their backs to the west-facing wall of the castle. Their legs splay out in front of them, feet covered by muddy sneakers—Will’s are a size too big (Jonathan’s hand-me-downs) and torn so that rainwater always seeps into his socks, and Lucas’s are perfect: Converse high tops, new for his birthday. Leaves rustle outside. Branches crack under the feet of small, non-threatening animals.   
  
He figures he’s going to have to explain it in plain terms because Lucas is bent on blaming himself. “It’s your responsibility to be there for your friends. That’s true. And you were there for Max.” Will bumps a shoe against Lucas’s in a comforting gesture. “But it’s not your responsibility to make sure her life is perfect or to fix her way of coping. Especially not when that way of coping hurts you.” He sighs. “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want it.”  
  
“I _wish_ she wanted it.”  
  
“Maybe she will, one day. And, you know, you might be the one to help her then. But you also might not. That’s not something you have control over.”  
  
“It’s fucking stupid. This world is fucking stupid.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
There’s a silence that stretches long like the black sky stretches across the horizon. White speckles of stars show through the cracks between the Castle’s wood planks. “Lucas,” Will says, with finality. “It’s not your fault.”  
  
Lucas nods and inhales, exhales with a shuddering breath a moment later. “...Thanks.”

Time flies, and before they know it, the moon is nearing the center of the sky above their heads. Lucas notes aloud that they should head back soon. Will agrees, but neither moves, stuck in the magic of good conversation. They talk about weird dreams, the laughable kind.   
  
"One time, I dreamed that Cyndi Lauper was stealing all of the socks out of my dresser. I was so creeped out when I woke up that I had to check if they were still there," Lucas says. Will bursts into laughter.  
  
"Back when Chester was still alive, I had a dream that he could talk and we had an argument about the kind of food my mom was giving him. He kept threatening to move out, but I told him he couldn't pee on his favorite tree anymore if he left." Will laughs. "It was wild."  
  
Lucas guffaws.  
  
A comfortable silence sets in between them. The outside is so quiet and Will is so at ease that he nearly nods off. But then Lucas says:  
  
"Hey, Will?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but…"  
  
"What?"  
  
"What was your nightmare about? The one you had this morning."  
  
Will's mind stutters. Could he tell Lucas without ruining this newer, stronger bond they'd managed to build? Was he mistaken—the moment fragile? There's something embarrassing about it: the nightmare of a kid who's never stood up for himself.  
  
"It was just… you know that time when you all found me Melvalds? With Troy?"  
  
Lucas stares at him.  
  
"It was like that, but… Mike was there. Mike was Troy, or the other way around, or something. And…"  
  
Maybe he shouldn't have started the "and" part.  
  
"And?" Lucas prompts.  
  
"Ugh, it sounds awful."  
  
"I won't tell anyone," Lucas says. He thrusts out a pinky, momentarily transporting them both back to playground days—recesses spent cavorting in the sun. "I swear. It doesn't leave the castle."  
  
Will looks into Lucas's eyes for a long moment. He _knows_ Lucas wouldn't say anything, but still. Lucas would know, and that already sounds like too much. But some part of Will is ready to give up the burden of total silence. He points his gaze away and admits, "He—Troy, Mike, the Mindflayer, whoever. It kissed me."  
  
"Whoa." It’s that look of disgust that Will feared.  
  
"Not like in a good way," Will rushes to explain. "It was terrible. My stomach was sick, and I wanted to run but I couldn't. I was trapped.” The hands in his lap fidget around something terrible.  
  
“That sounds… awful. That sounds like a stress dream.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Lucas goes quiet. Then, “I get being stressed about Troy and the Mindflayer, but Mike?”  
  
“You’ve seen how he’s acting.”  
  
“But he wouldn’t…” Lucas looks away. “Like… attack you.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Not that your dreams have to make sense. Obviously Cyndi Lauper doesn’t make sense either. But—oh God, Will, has Mike been _scaring_ you?”   
  
“Ugh!” Will covers his face with his palms. “It sounds terrible. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything. I sound crazy.”  
  
 _“No,_ man, you can’t help how you feel. If you’re scared, you’re scared.”  
  
 _“Mike doesn’t scare me,”_ Will says. No. Never. Concern him? Yes, immensely. But fear—that wasn’t them. “Troy does, and the Mindflayer does, and…” Jesus Christ, he just _had_ to run his mouth off and say ‘and’ again!  
  
Lucas waits.  
  
“Kissing does, I guess, too?” He looks away.  
  
“Oh.” Lucas says, dumbly.   
  
Will bounces his foot side to side, searching for a way to justify all this information he’s just laid bare for no apparent reason.  
  
“Like, kissing altogether, or?” Lucas asks.  
  
“No. I just… I don’t like how much it’s taken over my life—the not having kissed anyone thing. Like, clearly that’s humiliating.”  
  
“No it’s not.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
 _“No,_ it’s not! I promise. There are, y’know, others who haven’t been kissed.”  
  
“Oh really?” Will looks flatly at Lucas. “Like who?”  
  
“Like… Okay, just because I can’t name anyone off the top of my head doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.”  
  
“Thanks, Lucas, that was a really great argument.”  
  
“Maybe it’s over-hyped anyway!” Lucas turns to fully face Will. He looks like a politician, gesturing with the full length of his arms. “Half of these other people are gonna regret their first kisses. And a quarter of the ones left over are gonna be jealous that it wasn’t better.”  
  
Will is silent. It’s sweet that Lucas cares enough to make the case, but it’s just not convincing. He seems to know that this is how Will feels.  
  
Lucas sighs. “Look, have you considered kissing a girl? Just to get it over with?”  
  
“Trust me, I’ve thought about it.”  
  
“And no dice?”  
  
Will shakes his head.  
  
“Okay,” Lucas glances around, as if there were other people in the forest just waiting to ambush the Castle. When the coast is clear, whatever that must mean, he turns back to Will. He stares at him, seeming uncertain. For the life of him, Will can’t guess why. “You think this won’t bother you anymore once you kiss someone?”  
  
“I mean,” Will stammers, “I—I—don’t know. It’ll probably be a while though. Maybe it’ll never even happen.” He smiles sheepishly. A joke that’s not really a joke.  
  
Lucas is quiet for another moment. Will shifts under his gaze. Then, finally: “What if I kiss you?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just so you can get it over with. Know what it’s like, and then you can move on. And then, when you go off to New York or San Francisco, or wherever it is you can sing out your gay little heart’s delights, you won’t be so nervous.”  
  
“You really don’t have to do that for me.” Will is gobsmacked.  
  
“I know I don’t have to. But you’re my friend, and if this is upsetting you, then I wanna help.”  
  
“That—you—you don’t wanna kiss a guy.”   
  
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine! I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to.” Now Lucas has the decency to look embarrassed, too. “It was just a suggestion.”  
  
Then, Will worries that he’d backpedaled too quickly. What if this truly was his only chance, and he’d just blown it? “No, wait,” he says. “Ugh,” and covers his face again. “Let me think for a minute.”   
  
“Ok.”  
  
“You kind of just sprung it on me, is all.”  
  
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it. Sorry. That was weird.”  
  
Why do they all keep _saying_ that?  
  
“No,” Will reassures him. “It was nice. This is really nice of you. You just—you know that you can’t take back having kissed a boy, right?” He recalls the image of Mike laying beside him in bed, in the dark where nobody could see, still ashamed of what had existed only between them.   
  
“My masculinity isn’t _that_ fragile, Will.” Lucas laughs. “And TMI, I think I’ve done enough girl-kissing to earn one friendly guy kiss.”  
  
Will laughs, too. “Just listen to yourself. ‘One friendly guy kiss.’ Ahahahahahaha—”   
  
“Hey! Mike and Dustin would _never_ be this brave. I’m practically fuckin’ Magellan over here.” Lucas grins.  
  
“Okay. Okay.” Will gets his bearings back. “Just one quick, easy, simple, friendly guy kiss.”  
  
“Well, now you’re making me sound heartless. Do you want a first kiss or not?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Okay. Just. Just turn to me, and close your eyes. I promise I’ll make this as painless as possible.”  
  
“Alright.” Will does as he’s told, but when Lucas moves toward him, he can’t help but giggle.  
  
“Oh my god, Will.”  
  
“Sorry! Sorry. It’s strange.”  
  
“Strange like stop?”  
  
“No. Strange like I need it to happen. Don’t let me chicken out.”  
  
Lucas moves forward again, and Will jerks back, laughing.  
  
 _“Will,”_ Lucas groans.  
  
“I know! I know! Sorry. Oh my god.” He opens his eyes and takes in the image of Lucas that Max must have seen a thousand times—face unusually close with dark brown, beautiful eyes drooping slightly and well, he’s handsome isn’t he? He looks so much older than Will’s ever seen him.   
  
“Are you ready?”  
  
“Don’t warn me.” Will swallows, closes his eyes, forces the tension out of his shoulders, relaxes his face. No warning will come, but he can tell that Lucas is waiting for those physical signals before he moves in again. Will holds his breath.  
  
And in a short moment, Lucas closes the distance between them, placing his lips chastely against Will’s. He pauses, just long enough to let the feeling of contact linger. Just long enough that Will can store the memory properly. He hadn’t noticed it among the scent of trees and dirt, but Lucas is wearing a clean, subtle cologne that Will only smells because of their proximity. _That_ almost feels more intimate than the kiss.  
  
Lucas pulls back as Will opens his eyes again. Lucas seems… confused? But the expression vanishes within the second, and then Will can’t hold in his giggles any longer. Soon they’re laughing together, and they’re laughing hard enough to banish all bad spirits from the Castle. Begone, ye who threaten to enter: silence, shame, and cowardice. Begone, ye who would hold down a boy given, for the first time, hope for the future; for he who grasps that hope will grasp it tighter than the world ever can wring his neck.

* * *

_“And I know you want me around,_  
  
 _and I’m just trying to keep it down._  
  
 _I know you miss your lover,_  
  
 _but I’m just trying to be your brother.”_  
  
— “Brother,” The Aubreys 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. this chapter was, in part, specifically in opposition to the part of the fandom that REALLY likes to make lucas homophobic. how can you do that to a bi king? antiblackness, that's how.  
> 2\. mmmmmmm........i hope you enjoyed Mike in this chapter bc you will NOT in the next update. peace. stay healthy/safe loves ✌️


	3. Love Will Tear Us Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: car crash, suicide ideation, swearing. i think that's it, but please let me know if there's anything else i should add!
> 
> This isn't a very long chapter compared to the last two, and we'll be switching to Mike's POV next time! 
> 
> Remember the "But things will get worse before they get better" tag? :)

**September 1988 / The Next Day**

"Lucas! Wake up! That _girl_ is on the phone for you!" 

Erica's voice interrupts Will's dream—something about a wizard school, or was it dragons?—and he turns over on the guest futon to see Lucas scrambling to tug some pants on. Erica knows Max's name, but she doesn't like to let on how much she knows/cares about Lucas's personal life. Or the fact that she and Max actually get along.

"I'll be there in a minute!" Lucas shouts. "Tell her I'll be there!" He trips over some school binders on the floor and disappears. Will pulls a pillow over his head, groans into it. It's far too early. He’s still wearing yesterday's clothing—definitely smells bad. The memory of Lucas and him in the Castle comes flooding back, and for a moment it's indistinguishable from a dream. But it was real. That much is certain.

Will rises and heads into the bathroom, where he grabs his designated guest towel to lay aside, and jumps into the shower. The funny thing is, he doesn't feel any different, having kissed Lucas. Like the act of kissing in itself was nothing special, changing his inherent makeup. It's kind of disappointing, actually. But he keeps thinking about it. The mechanics of it, and then the closeness of it. The thought strikes him that he'd never been _that_ physically close to Lucas before, and likely never would be again. 

The same is true for that weird moment in Mike's bed, when he'd brushed the back of Will's hand with his lips, and then quickly shut it down. They’d never do that again, Will knows. It hurts him down in his core, and he wants to vomit or scream, but he can't do either in the Sinclairs' shower, so he just sobs silently into the falling water. He could choke in here if given the right amount of time.

When he exits the bathroom, Lucas is fuming at the kitchen table. He's not on the phone with Max. 

"What's up?" Will yawns.

"Erica's a _fucking gremlin_ _."_ Lucas says it loud enough so she can overhear him from the living room. He lowers his voice again. "She lied about Max calling. She never called. God, I'm so _stupid_ _._ "

"No, you aren't." Will presses his lips together in a flat line. He doesn't know what to do with himself around Lucas, even though Lucas is acting normal. Maybe he's too distraught about Erica's prank to care. "Do you want anything?" Will offers. "Cereal?"

"And coffee," Lucas says. "Thanks."

"Really?" Will opens a cupboard to retrieve the box of C-3PO's. "You didn't used to like coffee."

"I also used to have a girlfriend," Lucas says flatly. "Things change." 

Will shifts uncomfortably, but goes to pour two bowls for both of them. "Remember what we talked about last night?" 

Lucas pauses, his eyes grow wide like he's just now remembering something, and he nods. "Sure," he mutters. "I know. It's not good to be stuck on it. I'll try to stop… bringing her up so much. But the gremlin isn't making it easier." 

Will shrugs, hands Lucas the bowl, and starts to pour two mugs of coffee. He likes the domesticity, and wonders whether he'll ever get the chance to do this with a boyfriend some day. He would be good at it, probably. Scratch that—he would make _sure_ that he's good at it.

“Oh, shit,” Lucas says, gesturing to his wrist watch. “We overslept. I told Dustin we’d meet up with him by 9:30.”

“Where is he?” Will asks before he shovels a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. His mom doesn’t really buy the brand name stuff, so this is nice.

“Family Video. I need to return that _Outsiders_ tape we watched.”

“Does Steve still work there?”

“Yep,” Lucas says. “Dustin says he got Employee of the Month before Steve did.”

“Oh my god.”

They pull into an empty spot in front of Family Video, and Mr. Wheeler’s old car sits right in the adjacent spot. “You didn’t say Mike was coming,” Will groans. But of course he’s there. He would always be around to make Will feel confused and giddy and nervous and embarrassed because that’s what Mike Wheeler always does best. Through the car window, a telling poof of dark hair and teal-striped polo shirt stand out against the tape racks. Will sinks down in his seat, tries to control his breathing. It’s okay; yeah, yesterday was awkward, but nobody fought. Nobody died. Easy peasy.

“I didn’t know it mattered,” Lucas says. But the look on his face signals that he understands now. Will could almost laugh if he wasn’t so mortified. 

“Look.” Lucas shuts the car off and unbuckles his seat belt. “If he starts acting weird, I can call him out on it, if that’s what you want. Or I can redirect. I’ll help however you need me to.” He gives Will a little, unsure smile. 

Will remains quiet for a long moment, considering the options—one of which is dissolving right then and there into the seat, like acid into concrete. Instead he says, “It’s fine.” They both get out and head toward the front door of the video store. “He can’t control me,” Will mutters. Lucas blinks because he probably doesn’t know what to say, and they head inside.

When the little bell above the entrance rings to announce their arrival, Dustin (in uniform, behind the front desk) cries, “Is that _William Byers?_ ” He performatively rubs his eyes. “And _Lucas Sinclair?_ Oh man, you guys. It’s been so long!” 

Will rolls his eyes in response. They’re lucky that the store is a ghost town. Out of the corner of his eye, Will sees Mike’s head snap up. He’d been standing between the stacks with a tape in his hand, reading the back. Usually this was Mike’s cue to walk over, but he seems hesitant. Will clenches and unclenches his fists; when did his hands get clammy? Fortunately, Steve emerges from the back room just in time.

“Oh!” Steve blurts. “What’s up, um, Will? Been a while. How’s the family?” Steve probably thinks that the Byers took all of the supernatural happenings with them when they moved away. 

“Good,” Will replies. “My mom’s good. Jonathan’s good, pretty much. El is—” he watches carefully in his periphery for Mike’s reaction, which doesn’t come— “good.” This is the exact kind of small talk that he hates.

“Cool. I hear Jonathan’s wrapping up school, right? Photography is… cool.” 

“Oh god,” Dustin interrupts. “I’ll put you both out of your misery. We have more important things to discuss, like the fact that _Mike_ just got his first college acceptance letter, and senior year hasn’t even started yet.” 

That piece of news finally gets Mike to start walking over. _“Dustin,”_ he sighs, exasperated.

“What?” Lucas laughs.

“Ohoho—” Steve places a big cardboard box on the front counter. He reaches across it and gives Mike a friendly slap on the back. “Where to?”

Mike glances at Will, and when their eyes meet, it’s exactly what’s expected: Mike quickly turns his gaze to Steve instead. “Just Indiana. My dad went there, so I think he pulled some strings.” He clears his throat. “I mean, it’s not my top choice, so I’m still waiting, but it feels good to know, you know?”

All that Will can manage is to murmur, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Ok, now that Mike got his time to be bashful, I wanna try this game I came up with,” Dustin says. “It’s been slow as shit lately, and boring.”

“Hey,” Steve says, like he’s been hurt. 

Dustin sighs. “Not you.” He pulls a notebook from under the front desk and flips around for a certain page. “I thought we could do a little scavenger hunt, especially after Mike and Lucas had that argument about who knows more movies. Will, you weren’t there for that, but trust me, it was as completely obnoxious as it sounds.” Will cracks a smile. Dustin continues: “So here’s the deal. I’m gonna read out a couple of details, like genre, actors, setting—you know, regular film stuff—and you gotta be the first one to bring me back a tape that matches.”

Steve huffs in annoyance, moving another box from the back room.

“But you gotta also put it back, okay? I didn’t design this just so you could screw up the store,” Dustin adds. “The details are gonna get harder and more specific as we move along. Will, I’d love if you could play and put both of these assholes in their place.”

“I don’t watch a lot unless it’s at the theater with El.” Will shrugs. “Don’t expect much.”

Mike glances at Will, but Will doesn’t look back at him. Lucas nods.

“Ok,” Dustin gathers their attention. “First things first: Find a sequel. On your marks, get set—MIKE I DIDN’T SAY GO”

But Mike is already off into the stacks, so Lucas is too. Will looks at Dustin, who waves him off. “Go! Go!”

Will wanders an aisle near the big storefront windows idly, not looking for anything in particular but the number two. He hears separate pairs of sneakers against the floor and knows that Mike and Lucas have both reached the front desk already. 

“LUCAS WINS ROUND ONE!” Dustin shouts. He quiets suddenly when a shopper comes in, pretends like nothing is out of the ordinary. 

When Will makes it back to the desk without any tapes in hand, Dustin says (more quietly): “Okay, for round two, find a movie with a demon in it.” Mike and Lucas run off in that fake-quiet, where they still make a lot of noise and push each other around, whisper-screaming curses at each other. Will follows them immediately into the horror section and grabs _The Omen_ , but Mike has already bolted off toward the front with _Children of the Corn_ in hand. Dustin calls the round for Mike. 

“Okay, third round. And we’ll go for three out of five maybe? Steve, you wanna do a drumroll?”

Steve rolls his eyes and starts tapping on the counter in a pathetic little drum beat. 

They do a round to find an animated movie musical (it takes a lot longer—Will finds _A_ _n American Tail_ and actually wins, while Lucas grabs _The Fox and the Hound_ , and Mike doesn’t get anything). Then a round for finding a movie with every vowel in the title, which is nearly impossible. Will wanders around until he finds something he’s never heard of before called _Eating Raoul_ and brings it casually up to Dustin, who grins. “Looks like you might win after all. I can’t wait to see their dumb faces.”

Round five is to get a movie with a vomit scene. Lucas runs to the left, and Mike and Will run off in the same direction. Their earlier awkwardness succumbs to the competitive spirit, and Will is ready to win even if it means he has to push his childhood best friend out of the way. 

It’s _on._ If only he could read faster. 

He’s looking for one particular movie. He only saw it for the first time last year. Based on a Stephen King novel. It’s something Mike mentioned a while ago. And he’s hanging out in the same area, which must mean… Will’s eyes finally lock onto three words that match the ones in his head.

_Stand By Me._

Their hands touch on the tape box. 

They both jolt away. 

“You can take it,” Mike says.

“Your hand was underneath mine,” Will says. What is he doing? He was WINNING!

The night with the wine and the card game. Will knows that they’re both thinking about it. He sees the panicked look in Mike’s eyes and backpedals. “You should take it. You’re more into movies a-anyway. It’s not like there’s a prize or anything.”

Mike picks up the tape box, pauses for a moment like he’s thinking, and holds it out for Will. “Honestly,” he says. “It feels like you’re always just creating these tiny little moral dilemmas for me.”

Will balks. “No, I’m not.”

“Not… Not intentionally. I just mean. I—" Mike seems puzzled at himself. He does that face where his eyebrows are scrunched together and his mouth is screwed up. It's ugly. "Here," he says. There's an edge to his voice. "Would you just take the tape? _Please?"_

Will puts his hand out, and as his fingers graze the box, Dustin announces that Lucas has won the round. They'll have to go again. 

Their day at Family Video comes to a close while Steve is locking up, telling them about his newest plans. "I finally got into this community college out of town. My dad—He’s such a dick, he was all like, ‘What’s the point if it’s not a real school?’—and I was like, _Fuck. You._ _”_

“He’s such a dick,” Dustin agrees.

“Such a dick, right!” Steve jiggles the door handle to make sure it’s locked. “Anyway, I’m crashing at Robin’s parents’ with her and Lynn like a huge fucking parasite right now, but we’re gonna road trip for a weekend, and then I’m done with this place,” he says, gesturing at Family Video. He kicks the door frame for good measure.

“Dads are pieces of shit,” Mike says. It takes Will by surprise. Steve turns and looks at Mike, mouth pressed into a thin line, then shrugs.

“Yeah, I remember Ted.” Steve laughs without humor. “You, me, and Nancy—same boat.” Mike shoves his hands into his pockets, but says nothing more.

Will swallows. 

“Well, same thing’ll happen that always happens,” Steve adds. “We’ll ignore each other for a month, and then he’ll ask if I’m seeing any girls, and I’ll say yes or no, and we’ll pretend like nothing ever happened.”

Steve waves his goodbye, closes the door to his car, and pulls out of the parking lot. Dustin pipes up while he sorts through his massive ring of identical keys, saying, “Don’t mention that I said this, but I literally had to ghostwrite his recommendation letter because our boss gives so little of a shit.” When he finds his car keys, he adds, “Are we meeting at Lucas’s now or later?”

Lucas casts a weary glance between Mike and Will. It’s subtle, but impossible for Will to miss. “Now is good, I think. I mean, now is good if…” He trails off, staring towards Will with a question mark throttling his voice. 

“Now works,” Will says.

He really needs to pack up his bag because he’s leaving soon. This week of nostalgic whiplash is coming to a close, and putting his clothing away is the beginning of the end; it’s admitting that it’s time to go. Time to leave Hawkins behind again. 

But for the moment, he’s distracted. Lucas, Dustin, and Mike, like attention-starved children, goof around the Sinclairs’ kitchen, cracking jokes and doing bits for what must be an hour before they do any real talking. Will’s sides hurt from laughing so much, and his eyes are full of tears. If the boys have noticed, they aren’t saying anything. Maybe they don’t understand what it’s like to laugh for the first time in months, but they certainly know how much Will needs this moment.

Lucas and Mike are both leaning with their backs against the same counter, while Dustin and Will stand opposite them. Lucas takes a swig from a Coke can and pushes Mike’s shoulder because of an awful potty joke. Some soda spills out from between his lips as he tries to stifle a grin and a snort. “I swear to God,” Lucas laughs. “I’m gonna remember _that_ forever, and I’m gonna tell your kids about it too.”

“You jerk!” Mike exclaims. “I guess godfathership is going to Dustin, then!”

“I wasn’t already gonna be godfather?” Dustin asks, his voice toeing the line between playful and offended. “I’m _so_ godfather material, Mike! I’d support your kids on their curiosity voyages way better than Lucas ever could.”

“Nuh-uh!” Lucas says.

“Yuh-huh! Will, who would make a better godfather?”

“Leave me out of this.”

“What?” Dustin laughs. “You think you should be it instead?”

“I didn’t say tha—” Will blushes.

“Because you’re so right and you should say it.”

“Will’s gonna be _my_ kids’ godfather,” Lucas says. “Mike can’t have him.”

“Not if I get him first!” Dustin shouts. 

“You said you don’t even want kids!” Lucas says as he pulls the tab off of his Coke can and throws it at Dustin, who throws a napkin back.

Will can’t help but notice Mike staring at him; he doesn’t think that he could handle being a godfather to Mike’s kids. The very thought is laughable. Then again, the quasi-incestuous nature of such an appointment is the kind of bitter irony that he’s come to expect out of life. Maybe he’d just kill himself if it ever came to it.

That’s not something normal people think. 

He rights himself. Mike is no longer looking because, well, why would he be? It doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, it never has. They were never going to run off together to that untouchable somewhere. Even though Will knows Mike better than anybody has ever known anybody, even though his calloused-over heart unfurls like ripe fruit when Mike is around, they were always never going to be. Through all the little moments of “what if?” it had always been no. Will had just been too desperate and lonely to admit it to himself.

But here, now, he admits it.

So what?

So what.

The phone rings on the wall. Lucas, still dampened by Erica’s prank from earlier, trudges over to it, lifts the receiver to his ear like he’s waiting on a death announcement. The other boys pay little attention until they hear him whisper, “Max? Max, what’s wrong?”

Lucas’s breathing catches, and his hand shakes against the phone. They see his head lower from the back. “Max, wait, wait—You’re talking too fast. I can’t hear you. Slow down.” Dustin catches Will’s eye, then Mike’s. He motions for them to follow him over to Lucas. 

“What’s going on?” Dustin asks.

Lucas shushes him and goes back to the phone.

Mike and Will share a startled glance.

“Okay. Okay. You called an ambulance? Are you hurt? Where?”

Lucas blinks several times, like he’s pushing back tears. “Stay—stay on the phone with me. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“What about El?” Will asks.

Mike puts his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Is she there? Is she okay?”

“They got in a car wreck on the way home,” Lucas answers. “She says they saw a truck swerving, and it almost hit someone else, so El tried to divert it with her powers, but it hit them instead.”

“But is she _okay?”_

“She—” Lucas cuts himself off, like Max is talking again. “She’s awake. She’s awake, and she wasn’t before, but she is now.”

“She could be concussed,” Dustin suggests.

“She’s talking,” Lucas says. The boys wait in the largest, fullest silence while somewhere out there, on the side of some road between California and Indiana, Max leans away from the payphone to listen for El. 

So this is what a normal crisis is like. It’s no more comforting than the magical horror of the Mindflayer and the Upside Down. Danger is danger is danger.

When Max returns, she’s talking loud enough that Will, Dustin, and Mike can hear her.

_“El is fine. There’s some blood on both of us, but help is coming.”_

“What can we do?” Lucas asks.

_“Listen, Lucas, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. Sometimes I just want to be mad, and I invent shit because I need something to be mad about. When we crashed and I just—I wanted to say sorry. I regret ignoring you like that, with no explanation. You deserved an explanation, but I couldn’t give it because I didn’t get it myself. But I get it now. I don’t want to be like this anymore, Lucas. I don’t want to screw everything up like I always do.”_

“Max—”

_“I keep making the same mistakes, like it’s the only thing I know how to do. And you put up with it because it’s what you think you need to do, but you shouldn’t. But you do. And I love you. I love you. I’m sorry I never said it. I regret not saying it.”_

Lucas’s bottom lip quivers. This conversation should belong to them alone. Will averts his gaze, considers leaving the room altogether. Dustin and Mike seem to take the hint and back off by a few steps. 

“I love you too,” Lucas murmurs into the phone.

A few moments pass while Max and Lucas talk in hushed tones. Lucas tells her that they’re going to be okay, and that he doesn’t blame her for anything. They sound so grown up. Grown up in a way like Will has never heard them before. 

Lucas turns around, finally. “Max says that El wants the phone.”

Mike puts his hand out to take it from him.

“She wants to talk to Will.”

Mike’s eyes widen, and his lips part, but no sound comes out. Will steps forward to take the phone and puts it up to his ear. She’s on the other end, speaking in her characteristically short phrases, and it sounds like she has a frog caught in her throat. 

_“Will,”_ she says.

“El.”

_“I’m sorry.”_

“No,” Will croaks. _“I’m_ sorry.”

They talk until the ambulance arrives.

Shirt by shirt mindlessly finds itself folded and placed into Will’s duffle bag. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Alone in Lucas’s room. He’s thinking about El in the car, about seeing someone else headed for trouble, and reaching out to save them, and hurting yourself in the process. Rinse and repeat. It’s almost like he’s there in real time with her. The truck careening towards a minivan in broad daylight. The trucker is drunk, no longer cares about who his actions harm because he’s hurting so bad. His hurt needs to be balanced out—he needs someone else to share it. El’s small hand raises up, and the veins beneath her skin flex like they always do under extreme effort. The blue sky turns momentarily too bright, neon blue.

Poor El. Poor Max.

There are tears in his eyes. The scene has dissolved, and the trouble is over for the moment. What’s the use of crying in the aftermath, anyway? Will wipes a tear away and switches over to folding his pants. The movements of his hands are automatic at this point, but he wants it to take more effort so that he can shut off his brain. The truck swerves into them. El hits her head. Max cries out and curses and sobs. 

They’re okay now. They’re okay.

It shouldn’t have taken a near-death experience for him and El to make up. He should have stopped her from leaving that day of the fight, and he should have made her stay until she understood that he was sorry.

He’s sure that Lucas feels the same.

They’re friends again. That’s what matters.

After the ambulance arrived and the phone call with El ended, Will had made an excuse about needing to pack, and ran up to Lucas’s room. He’d assumed that Dustin and Mike had both left already because it’s nearing sundown, but there’s a quiet, unsure knock against the doorframe. It’s the same irregular pattern, the _thump thump thump_ that Mike used to do on Castle Byers when he wanted to check if Will was ready to play. 

“Yeah?” Will answers. He hates the crack in his voice.

Mike is there, nearly too tall for the door frame, neck crooked forward like the premature geezer he is. “Can we talk?” he asks. Will rolls his eyes.

“Yeah.” His voice is firmer this time. He makes sure of it.

“You’re leaving soon.”

“Yeah.”

The sound of folded fabric hitting the bottom of a bag. Will keeps waiting for Mike to say something more. Will keeps waiting for Mike.

“Listen—”

“I’ve been listening,” Will bites.

“Uh, geeze.” Mike clears his throat and shifts a step to the side. He casts a glance over his shoulder, but no one is around. “Um. I wanted to say bye for real, I guess?”

“Oh.” Will straightens up and turns around. He folds his arms in front of him and meets Mike’s eyes directly. He needs to seem alright. Offers up a small smile—the kind that he gives as a side to his customer service voice at the restaurant. “Bye, then.”

“I meant…” Mike looks up at the ceiling, struggling for words, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “You and I haven’t really talked recently, what with me worried about El and all—”

“Really? You’ve been worried about El?”

Mike eyes him suspiciously. _“Yes._ I have.” 

“And that’s why you ditched me?”

“Um...” Mike looks as though he regrets coming upstairs.

“And why, on the phone just now, when El wanted to talk to me but not you, you kept glaring at me like it was my fault?”

“I wasn’t _glaring_ at you—”

“Yes you were, Mike!” Will says. “You looked fucking harrowing.”

Mike’s mouth gapes open, at a loss for words. When he finds them, he stutters: “W-Well. Why _would_ she talk to you instead of me?”

“I don’t know!” Will throws his hands into the air. “Why don’t you go ask her yourself instead of coming to me? Oh? Because you know the answer already?” He shakes his head and barks out a laugh. “Stop looking for me to say what you want to hear. I can’t be your yes man anymore.”

“Will,” Mike says. “What are you talking about?”

“Everything! This whole summer!” He doesn’t want to hold back anymore. He’s always held back because he’s always been scared of hurting someone, or of getting hurt. Turns out, holding back hurts too. “El is coming back to Hawkins, but she isn’t coming back to you. Not this time. Come on, Mike, there’s no way you don’t know that!”

Mike is silent. He shuts his eyes, long eyelashes running into pale freckles. Takes in a deep breath and lets it out. His voice is unnervingly smooth as he opens his eyes again. “And?”

“And what…?” Will echoes, confused.

“Are you happy now?”

_“What?”_

“That we broke up. That we’re done.” The room feels too cold suddenly. Will hears a hint of Mike’s inflection that sounds just a bit like Troy. It’s his imagination; he’s projecting, but the sound makes his heart jump into his throat, and his pulse starts to race.

When Will doesn’t respond, Mike pushes forward, and Will instinctively crosses his arms over his chest again. “Haven’t you just been waiting for us to call it off?” Mike sneers. “Aren’t you gonna finally take your shot? Start hitting on me?”

Will grimaces. So he’s known. He’s always known. The footsteps downstairs are too loud. Lucas’s room doesn’t feel private anymore. In a low voice, Will mutters, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” His eyes are hard and unblinking. “How the fuck could you say that to me?”

The wind outside rattles the window. Mike stares down at Will, silent and angry and defensive. Will holds his gaze, not giving an inch, and the strength of it causes a change in Mike’s face. A glimmer of uncertainty—of fear. 

“Just listen to yourself,” Will says.

Mike’s expression, the one with the furrowed brows and the downturned corners of his lips—it used to be endearing, but now it’s just infuriating. He doesn’t get what it’s like, and he never will.

“Guys?” Lucas calls up the stairs. The reminder of an outside world seems to bring Mike back into himself. He backs up, sniffs, and lifts his hand in an awkward goodbye. Will doesn’t say or do anything to soften the blow, just watches his childhood friend walk out the door. Just listens to his steps descending the stairs, to his car pulling out of the driveway. 

Maybe it’s time that Will takes his own advice. Rinse, no repeat. 

* * *

_“When routine bites hard_

_And ambitions are low_

_And resentment rides high_

_But emotions won't grow_

_And we're changing our ways_

_Taking different roads_

_Love, love will tear us apart again_

_Love, love will tear us apart again”_

— “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” Joy Division

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ST blog: https://hawkinsunsolved.tumblr.com/  
> Main blog: https://stepfordsnarker.tumblr.com/


End file.
